Destined
by Illyria Lives
Summary: A noble Samurai, Kai, has been tasked by the Empress to catch infamous pirate Captain Cole, who has kidnapped Prince Zane from the Royal Palace of the Wu family. Along the way, he meets a Sheriff, Jay, who promises his help-for a price. Together, they must find a way to save their world from impending darkness. It is their destiny; can they meet it? Rated for violence.
1. Chapter 1: Rain

Kitchen Sink AU originally by aychaye on tumblr.

Fanfiction by me.

* * *

It has been said that destiny is like the flow of the river downstream: constant, eternal, and unwavering. But that is not entirely true. The course of destiny was never so smooth as a river's course, and never so calm. Destiny was like rainfall. How the drops would collide in air, no one could be certain. Their wind-driven dance in storms is never set in stone. Chaos abounded in the miles between cloud and ground, going off course and then realigning, scattering only to group together again… no one can say where a droplet will go once it is free of its cloud. But, of all the things in the world to be sure of, it is this:

Rain will always fall.

Slowly, a storm gathered over the land of Ninjago. And the rain began…

* * *

Wu awoke late in the night and sat up slightly from his short cot, looking around for whatever had woken him. He stood, legs balancing his weight against the wooden floors with ease. He was getting on in years, but his body was still that of a much younger man's; if not for the lines beginning to take shape on his face or the whiteness beginning to take over his hair, he could be mistaken as half his age.

He exited his rooms in the Royal Wing of the Temple Palace and stood still in the hallway, looking down the sparse passage at a room alight with the glow of a lantern, transforming the rice paper walls into glowing sheets of opalescent light.

As he stood and watched, a dark form in a cloak emerged from the room. It hovered in the doorway of the room, which Wu correctly deduced was the room of his newborn nephew's.

"Misako," Wu said quietly. The woman in the cloak looked to him briefly before lowering her hood and revealing soft brown hair, begging to show signs of gray, and gentle face. Her eyes were full of sorrow. Wu stepped forward, close enough to mark the tears hidden in her eyes.

"You're leaving." It is not a question.

"It is what's best for Lloyd." It is not an answer.

"There are other ways—" he began, and she held up a hand for silence.

"He will never be able to become what he needs to be, if I remain here and remind him of his origins," she said. "I need… I need to find some way to help him myself."

"Then stay with him," Wu urged, and a sentence hung, unspoken, in the air.

_Stay with me._

She turned from him, lifting up her hood once more. "Don't tell him about me, or his father," she asked him. "Please, Wu. Promise me."

He nodded. She turned to leave, then stopped.

He took her hand.

"Don't go." His eyes were begging.

"Take care of Lloyd," was her only response, and she pulled her fingers from his, not meeting his gaze. His eyes begged and pleaded with her back as she turned around and left.

The King of Ninjago was left standing in the hallway of his palace, completely alone.

In the next room, the Destined Prince slept on, unknown to the loss of his mother. King Wu sat beside his cradle, looking in with tired but knowledgeable eyes. This small boy had a very large future ahead of him. When he had been born, the prophecy spread like wildfire, that he would one day save the world from darkness. Wearily Wu rested his hand on the sleeping child's back. Such a heavy future for such a tiny little thing…

Footsteps, outside the room.

Wu stood up quickly, hoping beyond hope that Misako had changed her mind. He fought to keep from looking too disappointed when it was his adopted son Zane, instead, managing to look perfectly rested, not at all like he had just woken up.

"Yes, Zane?" Wu asked in a tired voice, "What is it?"

Zane hesitated slightly at his tone. "I… I had a strange dream. About Lloyd."

Wu's demeanor changed immediately, a spark of interest and concern lighting in his eyes. "Tell me everything."

Hours later, Zane was still explain his dream—a dream of darkness, pain, and three other young men, armed with weapons of gold—Lloyd finally awoke. It was a very different world from the one he had fallen asleep in.

Now he had a destiny.

Now he was in danger.

* * *

Years later, darkness covered the small collection of wooden houses known as Scraptown.

Jay woke up on the floor of the Sheriff's office. Smoke was in his lungs and in his eyes. All he could see was darkness. As he climbed to his feet, slowly, shakily, he brushed bits of glass and debris from his hair, a particularly large piece dragging down his eyebrow before he could swat it away, leaving a small scar.

He walked slowly up to the window of the Sheriff's station, blown out and missing its expensive glass. Outside, darkness was absolute save for the infinite pasture of stars in the sky.

The young cowboy frowned up at the sky, where he had last seen the hull of the pirate ship drifting away on the winds, laden with the entire store of gold in the town's bank. Searching around the floor, a glint of polished copper met his eyes, and he brushed glass and wood from the six-pointed Sheriff's star, abandoned. With a growing sense of purpose, he pinned it to his chest.

He would get that money back, and take in that pirate, Captain Cole, if it was the last thing he did.

_Even if it means going to the Shadow World to drag his soul back…_ Jay swore to himself. The day dawned cold and red, the sun clinging to the stone horizon. Jay watched it with satisfaction.

Now he had a purpose.

* * *

Between this world, and the next, there lies a barrier of shadow and bone and ash, a world with a sky like clouded glass that boiled red with heat and smoke, where the dead walked aimlessly, unable to pass on to the next life, damned to wander for all eternity.

And in this world there was a throne, and on it sat a creature of incredibly cruelty, of evil incarnate. His skin was an unnatural black, flooded with shadows and burns, and from his chest the white curve of his ribs showed beneath crumbling skin. His eyes were like coals and they burned into your soul. He was called Lord Garmadon.

One day he sat on his throne of bones in this shadow afterlife and saw a smoky figure emerged, flickering in and out of view with the spirit smoke he was inhaling in order to cross his soul over.

"Is something wrong, Captain?" Garmadon mused, leaning his chin into one of his four hands.

The young man looked up sharply and flinched—although Lord Garmadon had seen worse reactions, he nevertheless took pleasure in the primal fear that stirred in the young pirate captain's eyes.

"Have you misplaced something?" Garmadon continued with a smug grin, baring fangs to the gleam of the smoldering red sun overhead.

The young man swallowed and seemed to gather his confidence. "I have come to retrieve my father's soul," he said, straightening his broad shoulders.

Garmadon chuckled. "Try again."

The Captain faltered. "I… I offer you my soul in exchange for his."

Lord Garmadon pretended to consider this, inspecting how he cleaned ashen debris from beneath one cracked black fingernail. "The soul of one of the most feared pirates in all of Ninjago," he mused, peering at the Captain once again. The family resemblance between father and son was sharp; thick black hair, olive toned skin. Defiant brown eyes and a naturally frowning mouth.

The Captain perceived this pause in contemplation and desperately tried to sell himself for his father, "I am Captain Cole. Women and children fear my name. Men all cower in fear when my airship is seen overhead. I have millions of dollars in gold and jewels hidden throughout the land. Take my soul and use it how you will; just let my father go."

Garmadon laughed like shattering glass. "Captain, you are far more valuable to me with your soul intact. No… what I want from you is something else."

"Anything," Cole begged.

"I need you to retrieve something for me. Then I will release your father's soul."

"What would you have me do?" Cole asked, chest empty of breath and defiance dying in his eyes.

"There is a Prince, in the House of Wu." Cole caught his breath and Garmandon flashed fangs in a sickening smile. "I want you to find him, and bring him to me through the gate at the World's End. I will trade you your father's soul for the Prince."

Cole didn't hesitate. "I'll do it."

Lord Garmadon laughed then in triumph, and the shadows screamed alongside.

When the smoke had cleared from his lungs, making him choke and gag on freedom and light, Cole walked on steady feet from his berth on the flying airship, the _Destiny's Bounty._ He gave short, barking directions to the man at the helm to take him to the Royal Palace of Wu.

His dark eyes, seeking the horizon, were cold and determined. Like an animal, he gave off an energy of waiting, of hunting. He was a coiled snake, and his crew diligently avoided him.

Now he had a target.

* * *

"_You are special, Zane,_" his dreams had always said.

"Yes," he would nod, "but why?"

"_You have an important purpose, Zane."_

"What is it? Why am I here? What am I to do?" he would beg with his mind as his prophetic dreams surrounded him, dreams of birds with beating wings and a man with eyes like stone. Gold flashed, talons and weapons, mechanical transportation, eyes and teeth. Gold drowned him in his dreams as the young, lost and abandoned Prince watched his dreams for himself. He saw nothing but the bird, watching him with golden eyes.

"_Protect Lloyd, Zane."_

He nodded, feeling himself begin to awaken. "I will."

The bird became a man, so kind and familiar to Zane, and yet a stranger. He looked very sad. "I love you, Zane," he said.

Zane awoke before he could utter his reply, which he always forgot as his eyes opened to the dawn of a new day.

"_I love you as well. Father."_

* * *

Zane had had the visions as long as he could remember, which although not long, was all he knew. Whenever he slept he looking into another world that told him the secrets of the one he lived in.

"The Sixth Sense," King Wu had told him, when he first revealed his visions, in Lloyd's nursery, while the Destined Prince was a still but a baby. "It is a gift. A tool to help you protect others."

"Like Lloyd?" Zane had asked, looking over at the slumbering child.

Wu's hand was heavy on his shoulder. "Especially Lloyd. He will be King someday. You must protect him until then."

Zane had sworn to do so with all of his heart that night, and he never gave up his promise. One night he awoke in a sweat, his dreams bursting just beyond his open eyes. A man, dressed all in black, was coming for him. Coming for Lloyd.

Zane prepared himself to meet this man, and protect Lloyd however he could.

* * *

It had been raining when they first met.

Zane had been leading the young Prince through the gardens in the afternoon, taking on his duty as Elder to the Destined Prince. Any children that came into the royal family of Wu were Princes. But only those that were destined to be King ever had power and prestige. Zane was no such Prince, but he enjoyed his place in the royal family very much, tutoring his younger adoptive brother for when he would one day lead the nation.

The storm had rolled in without warning, and the white-haired Zane had herded Lloyd into a gazebo to escape the rain and loud thunder. The younger boy clung to his brother's leg.

"Zane," Lloyd said, "I'm scared."

"Do not be frightened," Zane had replied in a soothing tone. "It is only a bit of rain." Lightning flashed. Thunder roared. And in the light that temporarily illuminated the sky, Zane saw a dark shape approaching.

"Lloyd," his younger brother tensed at his tone, "Go and hide. And under no circumstances come out."

"But I can't leave you alone!" Lloyd insisted. "No matter what your sixth sense tells you, I'm going to help!"

"No, you are not," Zane insisted, kneeling down to look into his brother's eyes. "You are going to hide, Lloyd." The Destined Prince opened his mouth, defiance in his eyes.

"And that was _not a request_."

* * *

The ship docked on the edge of the cliff that the Royal Palace was situated on, rain dancing off of the raised sails. Once Cole hit the ground, he could feel the surety of the ground beneath his feet and the strength in the ancient stone. When he heard his crew also coming off the ship, he placed the butt of his golden scythe on the ground with a serious expression.

"I'm going alone. I won't be seen," he said, and his crew nodded uneasily. Dareth, his bumbling yet entertaining first mate, met his gaze.

"'Travel in shadows'," he quoted, and Cole had to smile at his own credo being thrown back into his face. He nodded to show that he understood and then began to sneak his way around the gardens of the palace. Such opulence made him sneer slightly.

As he rounded a blooming bush of some overly scented purple flower, Cole spotted a pillar of white standing in the middle of a walkway. The Prince that Garmadon had asked for. Rain drenched his white clothes, but Cole saw no tremors of cold in his shoulders as he made his way closer. Suddenly, through the clashing of the rain and the thunder, Cole heard something sharp move through the air.

He bent his back, having the sharpened golden shuriken only scrape away at the top layer of his rain-soaked black clothing. The Prince held out a hand and the throwing weapon returned to it without a complaint.

"I will not go without a fight," the Prince said without turning around.

Cole's hand tightened around the handle of his scythe. "I wasn't expecting you to," he said, and attacked.

The ground was slick between their feet as they battled in the rain. To the pirate, the prince was an unshakable force of nature, never missing a step and never wavering in his choice to not be removed peacefully. To the prince, the pirate was a warrior with the strength of a mountain, and the patience of a glacier. Neither saw an end to the fight coming soon. But then the lightning struck, and a young boy hiding in the bushes cried out.

As Cole began to turn his head to look for the sound, Zane purposely fell, the thought 'Lloyd must not be found' the only thing in his mind.

Cole hauled him to his feet by the front of his white robes, until he could look straight into the man's dark brown eyes.

"Wasn't much of a fight," he said. And, like he suspected, the Prince offered no response.

The rain washed away their footsteps as they made their way back to the ship.

* * *

Please join us again soon for chapter two.

Please review.


	2. Chapter 2: Sand

**Sorry for the long wait, I give you this extra long chapter as an apology.**

**Thank you for all the nice reviews :)**

**Idea by aychaye, fanfiction by me.**

* * *

Away from the Palace of Wu, situated high in the mountains, was the Palace of the Empress, who ruled over half of Ninjago. The young woman was unknown by any other name, and kept her face hidden behind a mask of paint, red and white, exaggerating her mouth and shielding her from her true self. She was very young, but spoke with wisdom beyond her years.

The Empress held court daily, for the lesser people of her kingdom to come to her and ask her for help or advice. She sat on her throne on a raised dias, and let each man or woman be brought before her to speak in privacy from the rest of the waiting citizens.

One day, a white-haired man was lead into her throne room, stooped with age and supporting himself on a cane. He introduced himself as a humble watchmaker who had once served King Wu and his family.

"Your majesty," the white-haired man bowed low to the Empress. "I… I come with devastating news."

"Speak freely, watchmaker," the Empress allowed in her soothingly low voice. "What troubles you?"

"I am no ordinary watchmaker," the man said, eyes humbly lowered. "I created mechanics for the house of Wu. They allowed me to study the ancient texts, and I created a machine that could look into the otherworlds with the legendary sixth sense. I made two such machines. One I kept to myself. The other, I gave to King Wu and his household. And both have begun to see…" he trailed off into silence, unable to articulate the darkness shown to him through his creations.

"Yes?" the Empress gently urged.

"They have seen the coming of the end. When the shadow realm and the afterworld are torn open, and the Overlord of Darkness can emerge. I implore you, your majesty, to believe me, and help the world, somehow."

The Empress sat back in her throne, considering. The man, a Dr. Julien, had no knowledge of the royal prophecies surrounding the house of Wu and its sons. His new information only served to validate the centuries-old belief that darkness would come and be vanquished by their youngest son.

When the watchmaker had been dismissed, Nya waved over a messenger and told him to call on King Wu and his family. Immediately.

They were all in danger.

* * *

It was only hours later when the return to her message arrived by dragon. A single note.

"_The Prince has been taken. Please, help us."_

The Empress set the note aside and turned to an awaiting servant.

"Bring me the Samurai."

* * *

Behind the palace, there was a shallow pit of yellow sand, hard-packed but crumbling away from time and overuse. This was where the servant found him.

His hair was a burning brown and stood up in messy directions, pressed flat on one side and sharply pointing up from another, clashing and creating a singular silhouette over the sand as he stood at the ready, sword in its sheath on his hip. As the servant approached cautiously, the samurai sprang into action, unsheathing his sword in an arc of flames and doing battle against an unseen opponent. His stance and gaze softened when he noticed the anxious servant waiting at the edge of the pit.

"Yeah?" he asked bluntly, leaning his sword against his shoulder. The sunlight glinted off of the gold, making the rubies dance red light across the samurai's face.

"The Empress requests your presence," the servant bowed and missed the raising of one scarred eyebrow.

The Samurai made a noise of disinterest and moved again into his exercises. The golden sword sliced ad hacked at invisible enemies, and the movements of his feet sent up small clouds of yellow dust.

The servant's voice tightened. "The Empress is waiting."

One of the samurai's eyes glinted over his shoulder as he looked the servant up and down again. With a sigh, he straightened and sheathed his sword. "Tell her I'm on my way up."

* * *

Kai bent his head as he knelt, even though there was no one else in the room to call him out on impropriety. It had become second nature to him when around the Empress, to not look at her face, hidden behind a mask of red and white paint. Her black hair, twisted and tucked was impossibly large, definitely a wig meant to hide her real hair.

Even though he could not see her face, he heard the smile in her voice. "My samurai. Kai. I have a mission for you."

"Anything you want; I am your slave."

He smiled to himself as he sensed that in the silence she rolled her eyes. "I do wish you would stop with the dramatics when it's just us."

"Force of habit, your majesty?" he tried.

"Force of thick headedness," she snorted. "This is a serious matter, Kai. I entrust the future of the entire kingdom to you."

He looked up, eyes glinting with fire. "What would you have me do, Empress?"

She grinned, an upwards twist of her red-painted mouth. "Now that's more like it."

* * *

Kai was still as the door to the throne room shut gently behind him. His head was an eye in a storm that surrounded all of Ninjago, and he mentally arranged his thoughts as he began walking towards the dragon stables. King Wu had requested the Empress's help in locating the kidnapper of his eldest son, Prince Zane. The real target had been the youngest Prince, Lloyd.

Kai was unaware that he had stopped walking until a servant bustled by, giving him a sideways look. The young samurai shook his head and wished that he could have his sister by his side, to talk to her and divulge his newest secret.

"There is some delicacy in this, you must understand," the Empress had said, and he had shrugged, a gentle rolling of his armor-clad shoulders.

"Sounds simply enough to me," he said, a smile alighting on his face in expectation. "Find the pirate, smash him and grab the Prince."

The Empress repressed a sigh, but Kai knew that she was dying to give into it. It was as if he could read her mind, most days, when she tried to remain aloof and uninterested. Instead, she gave him a stern look. "This isn't just a simple kidnapping, Kai. There are dark forces at work behind it. It is believed that the real target was the younger prince, Lloyd. He is destined to save all of Ninjago from darkness."

Kai pricked up his ears at this new bit of information. "You think that the pirate is in league with the dark forces?"

She nodded simply. Kai chewed the inside of his lip. "That changes nothing," he finally said.

"Kai—" the Empress began to say in exasperation, before sighing. "I can't convince you otherwise, can I?" she asked. He gave a rather smug bow in return and she waved her hand. "Just promise that you will be careful," she told him as the doors to the throne room were opened, allowing him to leave.

His eyes were alight with sparks as he grinned up at her, focusing on her neck rather than her face, as it was not proper to look the Empress in the eyes. "My Empress… whenever am I not?"

Her sharp retort died in her mouth as she watched him walk confidently from the room.

Kai shook himself from his thoughts as he finally reached the Dragon Stables. Situated over a cliff for better take-offs, the stables housed the finest breeds of flying dragon in all of ninjago. They were rare, but the only way that Kai could see himself catching up with the pirate captain's airship. As the Samurai set about saddling his chosen dragon, a young fire-drake named Flame that enjoyed Kai's company almost as much as Kai enjoyed his. They were two of a kind, the lead dragon tamer liked to snort, both unruly and proud.

Kai stood on cliff's edge, peering over for a moment before deciding that now the winds were in his favor, and it would be best to leave immediately. He was just retrieving the now readied Flame from his stall in the stables when a small green spot emerged from the palace and began to sprint towards him, shouting out "SAMURAI!" in a reedy voice.

With a sigh Kai stood waiting for the Prince of Ninjago to approach him. When the young boy got close, panting and chest heaving, Kai pointedly offered no bow of respect, instead demanding, "What are you _doing_ here, kid?"

Prince Lloyd had come along with a message from the House of Wu, and the request to keep him safe, away from where any potential assassins might know him to be. His green eyes burned out with determination from beneath a layer of blonde fringe. "I'm coming with you," he said, straightening.

Kai didn't hesitate. "Absolutely not." He turned around and lead Flame to where he would begin his run down the runway of the cliff, and began to mount the saddle.

Prince Lloyd followed after him relentlessly. _"He's my brother!"_

Kai hesitated, one foot in the stirrup of the saddle. "I'm not saying that he isn't," he said eventually. "And getting yourself killed isn't going to prove that he is."

"He was taken protecting me. It's my fault he's in this mess—!"

"And would it have been better, otherwise?" Kai demanded, patience spent. He turned around sharply to glare down the young boy, banishing thoughts of decorum and respect. "You are the chosen one. If Garmadon had gotten his hands on you—"

"The point is he _didn't_. He has Zane. _And do you know what he'll do to him when he finds out that it's not me?!"_

Kai ground his teeth. He was finished arguing about this with a child. He swung up into the saddle of the dragon. "You are going to stay here with the Empress," he said with finality.

Prince Lloyd gathered himself up to his full, if unimpressive, height. "I order you to take me with you."

Kai gave a harsh laugh. "Kid, you're not my prince." He clicked his tongue and the dragon took off, Lloyd running along behind, shouting curses that Kai couldn't hear. Kai didn't turn around to see how the prince halted at the cliff's edge, looking sullenly down into the depths of the ocean before collapsing down, sitting as if to take up as little space as possible.

* * *

The Empress sat alone in her throne room, makeup old and faded on her face, the royal mask of white and red. It was night.

'Please, please come back,' she thought, turning her mind to a little boy in green that needed to be returned, for the sake of the world. 'Please find him safely, Kai my knight.'

'And keep yourself safe as well.'

* * *

Kai patted Flame on the neck as they soared high above the clouds, looking down at the flying mechanical airship below them. The speed they were keeping wasn't anything impressive, and from the way the men moved lazily around the deck, not doing anything in particular, he deduced that none of them would be on guard for his plan. A plan that had taken him, at most, half an hour.

"Ready, Flame?" he asked. "Don't worry about me." He stood up on the saddle, crouching low and unsheathing his golden sword. He took in a deep breath and released it only as he jumped, falling through the sky and hitting the deck loudly, sending out a warning arc of flames, sending the more attentive pirates stumbling back, hands up to protect their faces from the flames.

"Where is your captain?!" Kai demanded loudly. "I have a matter of business to discuss with him."

Kai remained crouched and ready on the deck while the pirates all exchanged glances with one another. Finally one stepped up, eyes dark and thick black hair dropping close to his shoulders. "I am the Captain of this ship," he said in a hard, deep voice. "And I don't do business with your Empress."

With a heavy coating in his mouth, Kai wondered darkly how it was so transparent that he worked for the Empress, a thought followed closely by how he had expected something different from the infamous pirate captain. He was broad and strong, yes, but shorter than Kai would have guessed, and he was currently dressed very plainly, in all-purpose black clothing. He held something in one hand, somewhat behind his back, but the thick circle of pirates stopped Kai from discerning what it was. He pushed it from his mind and raised his sword threateningly.

"Return the prince to me," Kai said tightly, "or I'll kill you."

There was a dark chuckle among the pirates. Captain Cole did not join in. "You'll _try_," he corrected, stepping forward and shouldering his crew aside. Kai started when he saw that what Cole held was a large golden scythe.

"How—" he started to say, but cut himself short as he recognized how desperately outmatched he was. His eyes flickered upwards and found Flame still flying over them. He needed to get to him—

Kai backflipped as the blade of the scythe passed in front of his throat. Rolling, Kai found his back against the mast. And idea bloomed in his mind and he desperately took a hold of it, climbing as fast at he could up the mast until he was walking along a beam used to hold up the mass of rigging and canvas that was the sails of the ship. Flame gave a roar in the distance.

"Not so fast, Samurai," a dark voice said behind him, and Kai looked over his shoulder to see the captain walking towards him, as evenly balanced on the pole as Kai would have been walking on land. His golden scythe gleamed coldly in the light.

Kai again sent out a wreath of flames to try and keep his distance, but Captain Cole only stopped for a moment to release his now-flaming jacket to the deck below, freeing his arms. Kai chose a more direct approach then, going in to slice with his sword. Cole hooked the blade of his scythe into it, knocking it aside and following through with a strike from the butt of the staff, striking Kai across the back as he struggled to keep his balance.

Spitting out curses in frustration, Kai stood and tried to keep his balance as Cole watched him serenely. "Why do you need the prince?" Kai hissed.

"That's my business," the captain countered. "Why is he important to you?"

"You have no idea the amount of destruction this is going to cause!"

Cole didn't look too worried. "That's not my problem." He began to advance again, and Kai leapt up to try and climb through the mass netting of ropes to try and get high enough to call for Flame to come and retrieve him.

"Hey! Samurai!"

Kai looked down at Captain Cole, standing near a single rope. As he watched in apprehension, Cole swiped at the rope with his scythe, severing it. Two things happened—the top of the rigging began to go down, and the bottom began to go up, tangling Kai in a knot that he struggled to break. With a snap that sounded like a canon shot, Kai's stomach was suddenly in his mouth as he dropped away through empty space, barely capable of hearing Cole shout, "If you survive—tell your Empress not to interfere again!"

There are a few frightful minutes separating Kai from the ground as his tangle of netted ropes dropped from where they had been cut from the ship, and he used them to think about exactly how this job had gotten more difficult than he imagined. He had never seen, or even heard of another golden weapon before, and he would have hovered over the thought if he hadn't been falling to his death as the desert ground grew closer and closer—

He began turning over and over as he neared a dune, hoping and praying that somehow his day wouldn't get any worse with breaking his spine, and he was in luck, hitting the top of the large dune and rolling down the side, spending his momentum until he came to an abrupt stop.

The last thing that Kai can remember is the taste of sand in his mouth, gritty, bitter and burning hot from the sun. And then he goes to a thoughtless part of his mind and does not awake for some time.

* * *

He woke up as a shadow passed overhead and the sound of clinking metal reached his ears.

"Need any help there, pard?" a friendly voice asked, and Kai grunted out a vague negative. There was a short bit of laughter and the sound of what Kai gathered was a horse. He couldn't see either the horse or the rider, his face still pressed to the ground where he had fallen unconscious. Every part of his body was in pain, pulsing in and out with bruises and scrapes. A large fiery pulse from across his back reminded him of the battle in the rigging of the pirate ship.

As Kai started to struggle to unbind himself, there was another short cough of laughter.

"You sure you don't need any help?" the man asked from atop his high horse, pun fully and completely intended. Kai looked up from the hard-packed dirt ground warily, expecting trouble, but the speaker was an amicable-looking young man in dusty clothes with a wide grin on his face.

"I'm fine," Kai insisted. "I can get out of this myself."

"Sure," the young man smirked before swinging down from his horse, allowing Kai, twisted on the ground, to get a better look at him. Cowskin chaps, a dark blue shirt with faded denim pants, and a large copper star on his lapel, declaring him the authority of the area.

"Can I ask _how_ you got down here?" the sheriff asked, placing his hands on his hips, above his strange-looking six-shooters, which appeared to be made of gold.

"No," Kai squirmed. "It's none of your business."

"Well, actually, when a samurai—" Kai jumped helplessly as he was identified for the second time in as many days as a samurai, again bringing the memory of Captain Cole to the forefront of his jumbled mind— "falls smack into the middle of my town, wrapped in a net, I think I deserve to know."

Kai considered his options before rolling onto his back to better squint up at the lawman. "My name is Kai. And I could use a hand."

"Nice to meet you, Kai," the cowboy knelt down and cut the ropes apart, giving Kai a hand to help stand, "Name's Jay."

* * *

**Thank you for reading. Hopefully my next chapter will come faster.**

**Please review.**


	3. Chapter 3: Ink

**Geez, this is a long chapter. Oh well?**

**Warning: being a pirate is a bloody business, as Cole shows us in this chapter. Rated T for a reason.**

* * *

Once back on the deck of the _Bounty, _Cole waved off his crew's worried looks and gave a sad sigh in the direction of his ruined jacket. Samurai.

"You good, Captain?" Dareth called from the helm.

"Always!" Cole shouted back, trying to suffer up a grin and failing as he distanced himself from the other pirates, letting his shoulders slump forward. He tightened his mouth into a frown and went down to the brig, where the royal prisoner was kept.

As whenever Cole went down to the bowels of the ship to deliver food or other small tasks, the Prince was sitting cross-legged on the floor of his cell, eyes serenely closed. Cole knocked the back of one fist against the bars that separated the room into a single cell and a watch station, normally left empty. Cole was sure that even if the Prince did escape, he wouldn't be able to go anywhere with them in the middle of the sky.

The Prince opened one eye—a disorienting pale grey color—and asked, "Yes, Captain?"

"How many others are there?" Cole didn't beat around the bush. "How many golden weapons?"

"I have no idea what you mean," the Prince replied, untangling his legs and standing with fluid grace. His white robes were still untarnished after days in the slightly grimy room.

Cole leaned conspiratorially against the bars of the cell, lowering his voice more to communicate the sense of secrecy than to protect against eavesdroppers; his crew new not to go where he didn't want them.

"Your Empress's Samurai just took a long walk off a short beam," he whispered. "And he had a weapon made of gold with him. Rubies in the handle. Now I overlooked your weapons because two is a coincidence. But three is a pattern. What do you know about that, hm?"

The Prince did not shrug, but Cole suspected that such a motion would have fit perfectly into his thoughtful silence. "I was not taught about my shurikens. I was never told of another golden weapon… until I saw yours."

Cole cursed and pushed himself away from the bars, wincing slightly.

In a flash the Prince was at the bars, those unsettling gray eyes staring out at him. "You are injured."

The Pirate lifted his chin. "What of it?"

After a moment of silence the Prince looked away. "Nothing."

Grumbling something to himself, Cole turned around to leave.

The Golden Shuriken _chose _me," the Prince called out as Cole walked away from his cell. "Your Golden Scythe did not do the same for you?"

Cole paused in the doorway. "No," he said shortly. Shaking his head, the Pirate mounted the steps back up to the main deck of the ship to have someone look at the sizable burn on his back, where the fire on his coat had almost roasted away the shirt beneath.

Once Cole was gone, Zane sat back down again, shutting his eyes against the force of the pirate's defiant eyes, which remained at the forefront of his mind. Slowly, trickling to him softly from the otherworld, images—a vision—began to form in his mind.

_Black and red. Blood and hair. Gold gripped in a strong sun-darkened hand, so strong and gentle. Eyes open wide, dark brown eyes, defiant dying eyes, Cole's eyes, Cole's mouth, blood flooding Cole's open mouth and his open eyes are dying, looking at him. Rock crushing blood and bone and skin and heart, bone and rock and red and black and pain and death and defiant eyes looking at him and a mouth flooded with red and he's screaming, he's screaming in his eyes, dead, dead, dead, _dead—

With a rush like being pulled to the surface of the water, Zane's vision broke and he heaved in heavy breaths of air in an attempt to clear his head. Trembling slightly, he leveled himself on the ground and tried to find sleep. It was slow in coming.

* * *

"Wait, wait, _wait_."

"What?" Kai asked irritably, one hand curled around his drink. He and Jay, the Sheriff, were sitting in the half-empty saloon, nursing questionably safe alcoholic drinks. The burning ache around his body had settled down to a more manageable throb, and the sour-tasting whiskey had dulled the pain a bit, but not much. Kai sent up a few quick prayers of thanks for his specially designed armor, which Jay had proclaimed had saved his life, followed by an explanation of how it had done so that was so full packed of engineering jargon that Kai wrote it off immediately.

Jay had walked his horse back to the small, run-down town of leaning wooden structures in the desert, chatting one-sidedly with Kai until they reached the Saloon—then he had taken one long look at Kai and told him that the first drink was on him. Kai had sank onto the hard barstool with a barely suppressed sigh of relief, only to be immediately harangued into telling the story—from the beginning. Sheriff Jay was not a man to do anything by halves.

The beginning and premise of the story had flowed considerably easy, until Kai got to his first mention of his relationship with the Empress. A relationship almost as sibling-like as Kai's relationship with his own sister Nya. Then Jay felt it necessary to interrupt with his own questions.

"You're telling me that you know the Empress? _The_ Empress? Wow. Is she as pretty as they say?" His eyes were distant and starry.

"Not the point, here," Kai said with a glare. "The point is she needs to find the Prince. Like, the whole kingdom is relying on me to find him."

Jay moved his scarred eyebrow in such a way that was both inoffensive and very annoying. "Whatever. Our priorities are different."

Kai fought the urge to sigh, thought better of it, and continued. "Well, anyway; I was tracking him down, and I ended up crossing paths with some sky pirates." He tried to dance around the subject but was having no such luck.

Jay suddenly choked on his drink. "_Back up._ You managed to track down Captain Cole? Jeez, how did _that_ turn out for you?"

"He wrapped me in a net and dropped me from his ship." Kai deadpanned.

"Well, worse things could happen."

Kai glared before downing his drink in one go and standing. "I appreciate your help," Kai said stiffly as he bowed, "But I need to keep on going. I'm sure now that Captain Cole has the Prince onboard his ship."

"I'll help." Jay followed him from the saloon, into the sunny, dusty street.

"No, I don't think you will." Kai moved his hand to his sword. Jay moved his hands to his guns. They squared off in the street. Kai drew his sword, golden yellow and set with rubies, and swung it towards the sheriff, flames emitting from the blade. Jay drew his guns, but instead of firing, swung them together, locking them into a pair of strangely shaped nunchaku. He swung them over and around his shoulder and an arc of blue lightning connected to the fire, dissipating it. The dust cleared after the short battle and the two continued to face off.

Slowly, Kai sheathed his sword. "You can tag along," he allowed in a tolerant voice, before steaming internally at Jay's smug expression.

"Sure," the sheriff said, and they walked off together.

Not so long as half an hour later, Jay had turned over the control of the Sheriff's station to a rather young kid with spectacles and a face full of freckles, and had gathered up two horses and supplies for both himself and Kai, who had eyed the unfamiliar beast with hooded eyes. With the palace of the Empress and the Palace of Wu situated at the tops of incredibly high mountains, the only way to travel was by dragon. Kai had never been on a horse before. And he knew better than to ask if they could walk.

After struggling to get himself in the saddle in a way that didn't bring dishonor to his family for the rest of time, Kai let Jay lead the lumbering way out of the town and into the dry desert.

"So," Jay called over amicably from his own horse after about half an hour of traveling the barren wasteland, "Are you ever gonna tell me how you got tangled in that net in the first place?"

Kai didn't answer, more out of concern of falling off his horse than from his bruised pride. "No."

"Aw, c'mon!"

"Not right now," he hissed through clenched teeth.

"Whatever." Kai looked on in thinly veiled jealousy and disbelief as Jay leaned back in his saddle, swinging his legs out of the stirrups and arranging them in a comfortable knot around the horn of his saddle.

"You're not exactly… _acclimated_, are you?" Jay observed dryly, watching Kai's awkward and upright position in his saddle.

Kai gritted his teeth. "I'm not up to talking right now, Sheriff."

Jay shrugged. "Suit yourself. Frankly I've been told that I do enough talking for two anyway. You know where we're going, right?" Kai didn't have to answer before Jay continued, "There's a ridge of rocks that Captain Cole always stops at to fill up on drinking water before he hits the open sea. I figure we can make it there in time to snag your missing Prince from him. Sound good?"

"How long?"

"Four days?" Jay offered with a shrug. "Give or take. Depends on us and depends on whether or not he makes a… _pit stop_ on his way there."

Kai made a vague noise of approval and focused on the path ahead.

* * *

Zane saw the Captain every day that he was a prisoner on the _Bounty_. Whether it was him stopping by for a long chat, normally aimed at Zane and his life as a Prince, or a two-second exchanging of words, he could be sure to be given ample time to watch the man's defiant brown eyes and wonder at his vision's meaning.

But then one day he didn't come.

Zane sat and waiting, trying to meditate, but with his ears pricked to try and hear anything through the thick wood and the heavy sound of machinery. Sunlight flooded the room through the small porthole and then left with the sun. As much as Zane tried to forestall his thoughts from straying into that train of thought, he wondered what had happened, curious and a bit worried. He held no hate for the man, even for kidnapping him, as it was all part of the vision that Zane had seen. And the captain had never been cruel. Zane had even been rather surprised by his hospitality… despite keeping him locked in a cell.

Finally, around what Zane figured was midnight, the sound of footsteps approached the cell. Zane moved to the bars and called out, "Captain?"

The footsteps paused in the hallway outside the cell before the door opened slowly. A man that Zane dimly recognized as the second-in-command stood at the open door, his tall bouffant of hair looking slightly askew.

He hesitated once in the doorway, contemplating whether to bow or not. He settled for a short dip that was not unlike a curtsey. "The Captain, he needs your help."

"My help?"

"You're a healer, aren't you?" the man responded, and began to fiddle with the lock on the cell. As he was about to open the door, he paused. "If you try to run, you won't get far," he warned. Zane nodded, and apparently the man misread the look he had on his face, because he added in a softer voice, "… and the Captain dies."

Zane suppressed a shudder as his vision flashed again in his mind, as if recorded somewhere too deep to be replaced. _Black and red. Blood and hair. Gold gripped in a strong sun-darkened hand, so strong and gentle. Eyes open wide, dark brown eyes, defiant dying eyes, Cole's eyes, Cole's mouth, blood flooding Cole's open mouth and his open eyes are dying, looking at him. Rock crushing blood and bone and skin and heart, bone and rock and red and black and pain and death and defiant eyes looking at him and a mouth flooded with red and he's screaming, he's screaming in his eyes, dead, dead, dead, _dead—

"I won't run," he promised the man. Something unspoken invaded his voice, and the second-in-command nodded.

As Zane followed him up the stairs and to the deck of the ship, he saw the crew milling around, looking harried and tired. A few watched him warily, but most nodded to him with apparent gratitude. Finally Zane and the second in command stood at a simple wooden door.

"The Captain's quarters," the man explained, and hesitated a bit. "He's… being a bit unruly. Call if he tries to break your neck."

And with that final piece of advice, the door was opened and Zane was unceremoniously shoved inside.

It was a simple room, with a small desk, two chairs, and a bed against the far wall. Beside the expected maps of Ninjago, marked with black and red Xs, there were also several posters of travelling singing groups and bands. On the table were the beginnings of medical treatment, haphazardly abandoned, and for obvious reasons.

Captain Cole stood in the center of the room, his arms free of his shirt, which was still tied around his waist with a scarf for a belt. Blood smeared over his tan shoulders and a few long lines of red were dripping down his arms. He swayed uneasily on his feet, and an empty bottle of alcohol was in one hand.

As he recognized Zane, he rolled his eyes skywards. "Great. Dareth isn't giving up on this, is he? _I'm fine._" As soon as he said it, he swayed against the desk and cursed loudly, one hand pressed against his mouth to stop him from biting out a whimper of pain. The empty bottle slipped softly to the floor and rolled to Zane, who stopped it with his foot.

"I am a trained healer," Zane informed the pirate captain calmly. "You must be in a great amount of pain."

Cole muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "no duh."

"Please, sit," Zane gestured at one wooden chair, and with a resigned sigh, Cole swung it around with one hand and sat down. The Captain straddled the chair, leaning his arms against the back and allowing Zane to access the injuries on his bare back, including the days old burn from his fight with the Samurai, and several new open wounds from whatever had transpired on the town that they were leaving in their wake.

Wordlessly Zane began to work, sitting at the other chair, facing Cole's injuries. He picked up a few medical supplies, angular fingers removing large splinters of wood and a few shards of glittering glass and placing them aside. As he worked he would smooth the blood away with a damp cloth. Every once in a while Cole would hiss with pain, mouth pressed into his forearm. Zane offered no apologies or explanations, working silently.

In a voice that demanded no response, Cole muttered into his forearm, "I'm slipping. Got distracted for half a second." It was neither an excuse nor explanation, a simple statement of fact.

He cursed in a louder voice as Zane's cool fingers worried at a piece of shrapnel. "Careful."

"My apologies," Zane replied evenly, giving his wrists a small twist before returning to work. He was almost half done. He could feel the fatigue of the pirate through his back, how he slipped farther and farther forward over the back of the chair. His breathing grew deep, and Zane found himself speaking quietly into the silence.

"For all your questions about me, I know very little about you," Zane said evenly.

There was a snort from the pirate. "I'd rather keep it that way, _your highness._" There was acid in his voice that made Zane pause his movements for a moment before plowing forward.

"Where did you get this tattoo?" he finally asked, curiosity pouring over as his fingers brushed blood aside, showing the black and white swirl of scales and wings spread across the pirate's back, like a water and ink painting. A dragon writhed on the pirate's back, begging to fly.

There was a small sigh from Cole. "It was how I found my golden weapon. A dragon in a cave. I got the tattoo to remember it by."

Zane moved his hand one final time against his back, smoothing down a large bandage, with some sadness covering the tattoo. But, to his surprise, Cole continued to speak.

"I was running away. My father… I didn't want to do what he did, at first. I never seemed good enough. So I ran, and I ran right into a cave with a dragon inside." He laughed darkly, as if at his own childish ignorance. "I nearly died right there, I was so scared. I haven't been scared like that in a long time." His voice was soft and light with sleep. Zane put his hand under one of his arms and urged him silently to stand, leading him to his bed in the back of the berth. His weight leaned heavily onto the Prince, but he did not complain.

Once he was collapsed on the bed, Zane moved away, only to have his forearm caught in the crushing grip of the still delirious pirate. With some trepidation, his previous vision at the forefront of his mind, Zane looked at his defiant brown eyes. Deep, like wells. Dark, like the night without stars. He drowned in the darkness, and was only stopped from fading away by the sound of his voice.

"I'm sorry, but this needs to be done. I need. I need to prove that I'm not a coward. I need to. I need him. I need my father back." He stuttered and cut off sentences before starting them again. His lids drooped heavy over his eyes, and Zane gently took his hand back, thinking to himself. Cole's father. What did his capture have to do with his father? Zane had assumed that he was being ransomed. Or was he being traded, somehow? His mind was heavy with thought stood. But then Cole made a choking noise in his sleep and he looked over with worry.

When being taught healing, he was instructed that if not treated right away, some wounds could become infected with fever. Thinking it best to check now rather than later, Zane touched his long, cool fingers to Cole's forehead, checking the heat. He gave a small, satisfied smile when it was normal to the touch. Without his own thoughts, his hand traveled to his hair, tangling for a minute in the thick black locks.

Then, as if burned, Zane withdrew his hand, forcing his mind back into the track he needed to focus on. What did his capture have to do with Cole's father? Why did they both—and the Empress's Samurai, by Cole's own admission—have golden weapons. And his story of a dragon… was it at all related to Zane's own experience with the creature, and his shurikens? Quickly their meeting was becoming less of a random happenstance, and starting to seem… pre-destined, in a way. It weighed heavy on the Prince's mind as he was let out of the berth and escorted back to his cell.

He stayed awake for the rest of the night, meditating and looking for the answers within.

All he could see was the ink swirling over the thick muscles of Cole's back, staining his already sun-touched skin. All he could feel were his hands travelling over it… and he wondered at how the shadow of paint was invisible beneath his hands, if visible to his eyes.

A dragon haunted his mind into the hours of the morning.

* * *

Kai watched Jay through the campfire's crackling flames as he moved his hands over his two golden side-arms thoughtfully, as if wanting to memorize the detailed swirls of gold and sapphires. They were both six-shooters and nunchaku, depending on how he wanted them at any given time.

"How long have you had…" Kai started to say, before stopping himself.

Jay looked up, amusement as clear as always on his face. "I wasn't going to mention it, myself," he said. "But it's not every day I meet a guy packing a magical golden sword."

"It's not everyday I meet a guy packing… whatever those are," Kai tried to snap back.

Jay's smile was smug and completely irritating. Kai entertained the idea of slapping it from his face for a half second, before rationality took over. Better to punch it off. If he broke his nose, even better.

"I got mine one day, when I was exploring the desert. A twister came around, and the next thing I know I'm in the center of it, surrounded by lightning of all things. Well, I start to fly into the sides, and if it wasn't for one of my inventions you'd be talking to a dead man."

"Keep talking and you _will _be a dead man," Kai muttered to himself. Jay pretended not to hear.

"Well, anyway, once I'm at the top, there it is—this huge blue dragon, breathing lightning. And in one of his claws are these babies," he hefted up his two golden weapons, "well, this dragon looks at me for a moment, a long moment, you know, and then I swear that it just drops them. Like no big deal, here bro, enjoy these. Then it flies off and I'm all alone again."

"You sure do talk a lot," Kai sighed, more reflex than anything.

"How about you, or are you still not into show-and-tell?" the Sheriff asked, leaning back comfortably.

Kai looked away and ground his teeth at Jay's amused chuckle. "Thought so."

"I wouldn't want to keep you quiet for too long," Kai replied, "I imagine it would be a big burden to you."

Jay chuckled again softly. "Yeah, yeah."

Kai waited a moment before saying, "By 'pit stop' earlier, you meant…" he dared not finish the sentence.

"Ransacking a town," Jay said bluntly. "Yeah."

Kai frowned into the fire, eyebrows drawn together. Three golden weapons, all coincidentally on the same path. Unless it wasn't coincidental at all…

"You know about Captain Cole's golden weapon?" Kai asked. Jay nodded. "So you've met him before?"

"Oh, we've met," Jay said. "He burned half my town down, drove out anyone respectable, and left as all to rot. Took all the gold that we mined ourselves." His voice was dark and bitter.

Kai was about to offer his condolences and sympathies when Jay spoke up again, harshly. "Because that's what it all comes down to for scum like him. Who's got the gold, and where's it going. This is all that this is. The prince is just a price to him, and he's going to use him to buy something big. Something horrible. That's why we need to stop him. Stop him and make him pay for what he's done."

With that, Jay abruptly lay down on his sleeping roll and refused to speak, glaring up at the night sky. Thoughtfully, carefully, Kai did so as well.

This was no longer a random coincidence. It was almost as if all of it was connected somehow… Garmadon, the Prince, the pirate and the sheriff, their golden weapons…

His mind, tangled with thoughts, fell into a restless sleep. He dreamed of gold. Horrible, cold and menacing, gold. Gold that flooded over everything and gave out light like the sun and burned to the touch.

* * *

**Review, please.**


	4. Chapter 4: Bone

**Here we go, onwards to the plot.**

**Idea by aychaye on tumblr, fanfiction by me.**

* * *

Cole awoke with a fire in his back and a dream of icy gray skies fresh in his mind. The Pirate Captain pushed himself out of his bed with a groan, muscles sore. The physical memory brought images of the night before to the front of his mind and he buried his face in his hands, sitting on the edge of his bed. When had he become so useless? If his father was here, he would…

Cole pushed the thought aside and stood, swaying slightly. Last night was mostly a blur, and he surveyed the sizable bandage on his back, wondering which of his crew was brave enough to approach him in such a state. A few dots of blood were coming through the white linen, and as he struggled to move his stiff arms into the sleeves of his shirt, there was a light rapping at the shut door of his berth.

"Come on in, Dareth," he called out, knowing that his first mate was the only man of his crew brave enough to even think of calling on him before he had fully woken up. The door creaked open, but it wasn't Dareth who stood in the open space.

Prince Zane nodded at the pirate from the doorway. "You have opened the wounds again."

"Good morning to you too," Cole snapped in response. "I'm guessing that this is your handiwork?" he waved a hand down his linen-strapped torso. Zane nodded again and lets himself into the berth completely, shutting the door behind him. He motioned to a chair.

Cole ground his teeth. "I'm fine."

Zane lifted an eyebrow, looking pointedly to Cole's upright and stuff posture. "Obviously."

With a huff, the pirate sat down in the chair the same way he had the night before, straddling it so that the prince could sit behind him and work on his back. The bandages were removed and the wounds surveyed before Zane calmly informed him that he was in need of stiches. A needle and thread were found and the healer went to work while Cole chewed the inside of his mouth and gripped and ungripped his fists against the pain silently.

Finally, surprisingly, the pirate spoke up. "Thank you," he said.

The hands against his back paused for a moment, lifting into the air, before meeting skin again and resuming their work. "It was no great discomfort of mine."

"Not just the healing," Cole elaborated. "For not leaving. You could have, if you wanted to. Could have ran and left me to die of fever or gangrene or something."

The fingers paused again but unlike before, remained on his back, trailing mindlessly, cold and narrow and almost ghost-like. Cole could not stop a shudder from traveling down his spine, and it seemed to alert the prince to his movements, bringing him back to the last few stitches. "I could not have," he finally said.

Cole turned, wincing at the twist on his wounds to look at the prince over his shoulder. "Why not?" he asked. His thick eyebrows were drawn together and his eyes were confused.

Zane gently turned his shoulders so that he could finish his work, and so Cole could not see his face as he explained. "When I was very young I began to have visions. Visions of the future. I did not understand how, or why, but I was told that it was my purpose, to have these visions, and to use them to help people. Ever since then, it has been my duty, to protect people. You were in need of my help, and so I chose to protect you. It is my place."

He finished, tying another, smaller pack of bandages to the pirate captain's back and helping him into a clean white shirt and black jacket.

"Well, I will give you this—you do your duty a lot better than I did," Cole told him, before hesitating slightly. "And I owe you one."

"Will you let me go?" Zane asked, but his sarcastic smile and tone stopped Cole from answering, looking blankly at the prince with a shocked expression.

"Now is not the time to suddenly get a sense of humor," he warned, and he seemed saddened, a bit. He then clapped and rubbed his hands together before leading the way out of his berth. "But I'll tell you what—you can come to the ground with me. You deserve some fresh air… as long as you promise not to run."

"I promise," the prince said, and his grey eyes sought out the approaching forest of cliffs and mountains keenly. Cole watched him, and felt the ghostly touch of hands at his back, once more, shuddering before quickly leaving to stand at the wheel and guide the ship down to an empty peak.

He didn't see what was waiting for him below.

* * *

The cliffs were tall and along the slopes thick with jungle and small streams from the springs at the mostly empty summits. Kai felt instantly at home among them, so similar to the cliffs around the royal palace. But unlike those, which were all interconnected, part of the same mountain range, these peaks all stood straight up without any connection to the mountains beside them, rising out unnaturally.

"You coming?" Kai called down to Jay, who was struggling up the cliff face behind him.

The sheriff said something to the rocks that sounded suspiciously like "oh, bite me."

Kai chuckled to himself, dedicated to enjoying actually being better than the sheriff at something. For the few days that they had been travelling together, Jay had been proficient at everything—lighting fires, making camp, finding water, riding the horses, finding food, doing card tricks, falling asleep—_Everything._ And didn't he know it.

After a long climb up a mountain's steep base, they reached the top, flat and empty. A dark shape approached from the distance.

"Ready?" Kai asked Jay over his shoulder as the sheriff stood panting heavily with his hands on his knees.

"Always," Jay replied testily. "We need to wait until he's off the ship, though. We've got to take him one on one."

Kai nodded to show that he understood before they both hid off on one side of the cliff. The _Bounty _came closer and closer, hovering on the edge of the cliff as two ropes were released, with a dark and a white shape descending from them. The one in black was clearly Captain Cole—his scythe was on his back, glowing with golden light. The ship lowered a bit more when the two were on the ground, and ropes were thrown down, which was beginning to be tethered. Now it was time to act.

Kai leapt out from behind the rocks, sword in hand. Heat rushed from his chest to his hands, making the rubies along the hilt of the blade glow with energy. Flames gathered on the blade, rising and rising but held back by the samurai's force of will until Jay yelled "NOW!"

The flames released in a contracted sphere, which was struck by an arc of lightning. Flames, blue and orange, rushed through the air and narrowly missed the pirate captain, and slammed into the side of the ship, sending it away from the cliff. Together, the sheriff and the samurai rushed towards the carnage.

"GET AWAY!" Cole shouted to his ship, "PUT OUT THE FLAMES AND COME BACK AROUND!" Following his orders, the ship left and headed towards a cliff that shimmered with the surface of water. The pirate, seething with anger and his hair ruffled by the heat of the fireball passing by him, turned and his eyes widened. "You! The Samurai!"

"And me," Jay added, side arms connected into nunchucks that he swung around his head, sapphires gleaming. "Remember?"

Although he said nothing, the look that passed the pirate's face told the truth that he did remember him. Cole eyed the shining golden nunchaku. "Gold," he said, and looked to the man in white, that Kai didn't recognize.

The man in white looked around, eyes wide and a haunting shade of gray. Eventually he placed his hands behind his back and exhaled slowly. "This is a strange turn of events," he finally said, before looking at Kai. "The Empress sent you after me," de deduced, and Kai cursed. He was the Prince.

Kai sheathed his sword and motioned for Jay to relax. With an incredulous look, he did, swinging his side arms into their holsters with a narrowed look of suspicion. This wasn't their plan, but with the prince so close, the plan needed to be changed.

"I'm willing to negotiate for the return of the Prince," Kai said, his voice tense. Behind him, Jay's hands tightened over the handles of his side arms.

"Negotiate?" Cole laughed. "You have nothing that I want."

"If you give the Prince to me, I will spare your life," Kai replied evenly.

Cole eyed him with a fathomless look. "That threat didn't work out well for you the first time," he mused slowly, "so I'm going to say _no._"

As Kai was readying himself for a sharp retort Cole's hand flashed out and punched him square on the chin, knocking him flat on his back. With a yell, Jay took that as a sign to take out his guns and connect them, swinging out an arc of blue lightning, which Cole dodged while taking out his scythe.

"Your majesty," Kai said breathlessly, rushing to the prince's side to tug on his arm, "We're getting you out of here, right now!"

The prince's eyes were glazed over, and his jaw moved with a slight ticking sound. Kai tugged harder, but the man in white was unmovable. "Prince Zane!"

The prince shook his head slightly and then surged to shove Kai down. As he did, a white weapon flew over his head and disappeared into the abyss. Both parties stopped—Kai crouched by the kneeling Zane, Jay about to punch Cole, and Cole with his scythe up and ready to bring down to Jay's scull.

"A strange turn of events," Zane echoed himself, hands emerged holding golden weapons that he did not have before. "Get ready to fight," he called out.

"Fight what?" Cole asked, voice hard. "We're all here."

"I had a vision," Zane said, and he could not finish his sentence because then a mass of white, shining figures rose from the edges of the cliff, having just climbed straight up from the bottom.

Skeletons with black energy filling their empty chests and heads emerged from the rim of the mountaintop, holding weapons of bone and black steel. They moved, clattering loudly, as one, thoughtlessly approaching. A few threw weapons much like the one that had almost impaled Kai earlier.

They all sucked in a breath of surprise, the pirate and the sheriff forgetting their quarrel with each other to stand in a loose circle with Kai and Zane. Jay said, "You have _got _to be kidding me!"

"Garmadon," Cole stated darkly. Zane and Kai nodded their agreement.

"He does not want you to stop the Captain," Zane told Kai, and then turning to Cole—"And he does not want to pay you for delivering me to him."

Cole gritted his teeth. "Backstabbing, double-crossing—"

"He's the lord of all evil, what did you expect," Jay snapped back, "Worker's comp? A good dental plan?"

"That's enough," Kai snapped out, sword flickering with the beginning of flames. "When this is all over we can kill each other, all right?"

"You'll _try_," Cole replied, but his gaze was locked on the approaching skeletons—nearly an army's worth. His hands tightened on his scythe and Kai felt a bit better about his odds with the furious captain on his side. "But this doesn't change anything," he said, before jumping into the battle. With a cry, Kai followed after. As he entered the fray of skeletons and darkness that was cold on his skin, he heard again from Jay: "You have _got _to be kidding me!"

* * *

The Skeletons were hard to kill.

Kai learned quickly that you had to sever their heads from their bodies in order to stop them, and even then their bodies would continue on without their heads, blinding smashing into anything close to them with their clubs and knives made of sharpened bones. The darkness that gave them energy hit the stone of the ground like gelatinous oil, leaving a stain as the darkness evaporated into a foul-smelling smoke. Every clatter of bones and teeth that the Skeletons gave out was like the laughing of the dark lord, watching in his prison.

Kai didn't see in the throng of flying bones where the pirate captain, the sheriff, or the prince had gotten to, but he could hear often the sounds of Cole laying waste to groups of skeletons with deep-throated cries. But still, no matter how many skeletons were killed and destroyed, more and more continued to pour over the edge of the cliff. The return of the _Bounty _was nowhere in sight.

He fought as he had never fought before, but there were too many. A hard hit between his shoulder blades had him sprawling into the dust, head reeling. He flipped over and used his sword to knock the bone axe away from his head, but the skeleton standing over him wrenched his sword from him, laughing and chattering through an empty smile. It leaned over Kai and brought its boney hands, claw-like and cold, around his neck. A chattering laugh began in its throat.

Like a small child, frightened, Kai instinctively closed his eyes.

Kai let out the beginnings of a scream as the bony fingers dug into his neck. But then the cold pressure was gone and the Samurai looked up to see the Pirate standing over him, the ribcage of the skeleton skewered on the blade of his scythe. Cole reached down one hand and lifted Kai to his feet.

"I've got your back, kid," he said, in a voice that was a promise.

Kai hesitated for a moment before nodded and lifting the tip of his sword. Side by side they charged at the skeletons.

* * *

The Prince spun on one heel, body slanting, and released the golden shurikens in his hands, watching impassively as they cut through a line of skeletons before spinning and returning to his hands. He saw Kai and Cole together and joined them. Working together they were better able to fight off the Skeletons, clearing a wide area for them to stand in together, watching each other's backs. One edge of the cliff became their stronghold. The absence of Jay worried Kai for a moment before he saw the sheriff running along the tops of the skeleton's heads.

He jumped down and joined the others, a bit of blood leaking from his hairline and with black stains on his clothes. "Something's coming," he said breathlessly, and then the skeletons all fell silent and still, waiting with empty eyes and wide black smiles. Inky black energy dripped off of them, hissing as it hit the ground.

From the opposite edge of the mountaintop, and area with the tops of trees rising from it, a line of skeletons appeared, walking stiffly together in a tight wall of bone and metal, wearing armor better crafted than the skeletons they had just faced. At the forefront, a huge skeleton stalked forward, with four arms and a large, ape-like head. Red embers burned in the pits of its eyes, watching the four men ready their weapons.

All together, the four men began to walk backwards cautiously, no one taking their eyes from the advancing pack of shadow creatures and skeletons.

"I don't suppose you boys have been tinkering with your golden weapons since you got 'em?" Jay asked from one corner of his mouth.

"No," Kai snapped back, keeping his eyes locked on the advancing skeletons. Zane and Cole grunted their same answers. Zane's white robes were untouched by dark matter, but Cole had spatters of it on his face, bared in a grim look. "Why?"

"Second question: do you trust me?"

"No," Cole said frankly. Jay gave him a look.

"What _is_ it, Jay?!" Kai demanded, turning slightly, only to see Jay sprint off the cliff, with one final shouted instruction:

_"JUMP!"_

After a moment of hesitation, Kai turned on his heel and followed, cursing the sheriff all the way and hearing Cole and Zane hurrying after him.

He hit the ledge and as he fell, he let out a triumphant scream as the golden weapon in his hands began to transform.

_"Now that's what I'm talking about!"_

* * *

General Samukai leaned over the cliff's edge, watching as the four headed towards the ground, only to suddenly be caught into four different mechas—one with wings, two horse-like vehicles, and one with four wheels. He ground the teeth in his jaw before looking back over his army of skeletons.

A plume of black smoke rose from a brazier of herbs, and Samukai inhaled in sharply, letting it collect in his chest and bringing him into the presence of his master.

"They got away…" he reported, prepared for pain, but felt nothing. He looked at Garmadon in surprise as he began to laugh.

"_Excellent."_

* * *

They all stopped at the same time after travelling to the edge of the cliffs, with the desert and the ocean stretched ahead of them. They stumbled as their vehicles, mechas that they had never seen before or even knew the names of, folded back into their weapons, buzzing slightly in their hands.

Cole rested with his hands on his knees, chest heaving and eyes closed; scythe abandoned a few feet away. Jay was sitting down, a crazed look of excitement on his mouth, and Zane was standing perfectly still and seemingly unruffled. Kai felt like he had left his stomach and his legs behind but ignored it, eyeing his katana with a guarded look.

"I never knew…" he said before shaking his head. This was the least strange thing to happen to him this entire mission and he wasn't about to look a gift horse in its strangely magical mouth.

"Well, that was…" the Pirate seemed to think over an appropriate word before simply saying, "Something." He straightened for a minute before doubling over with a gasp between clenched teeth. The Prince, to Kai's surprise, moved to him immediately, resting one hand on his back for a moment before whispering something to him.

"What did you expect?" Cole barked back before wincing and struggling to straighten.

Zane caught Jay and Kai staring and explained in short terms that the pirate was injured, the wounds possibly reopened. After he was finished Cole chuckled and his eyes flashed from beneath a layer of hair, looking at Kai.

"If you still want to kill me, now's the time," he said.

Kai hesitated. "Why did you do it?" he finally asked, surprising both himself and Jay, who let out a wordless noise of protest that he managed to get under control with a sharp look from the Prince. "Kidnap the Prince." Zane looked from the now silent Jay to the still-pained Cole.

"Please, speak," Zane urged, and there was no judgment in his voice.

"It's my father," Cole said eventually, not looking at the waiting Prince. "He… there was an accident and Garmadon… Garmadon has his soul. And he promised me, that if I brought him you…" he trailed off.

Zane finished for him. "If you brought me to him, then he would release your father."

"Yeah." Cole pinched the bridge of his nose in his fingers. "But now… now everything is so complicated." He grew stiff with anger. "He was never going to give him back to me," he said, and his voice was surprisingly soft, wounded. It affected all of them, and even Jay looked to be a bit moved by it.

"Not that I want to help _you_ out, of all people," Jay spoke up from where he was beginning to stand, "but I think that there's a solution here that helps everyone. The Prince gets to go home. The Samurai saves the world. You get to shove it to Garmadon." He left himself out but no one pushed him. After he had spoken, he seemed to doubt himself. "But it would never work out."

"What is it?" Cole asked, and Zane looked with amazing foresight at the slightly fuming Kai, put out to not have gotten a plan together before Jay. He was the leader of this, not him.

The samurai glared to no one in particular. "The Empress was told that the prince is the key to defeat Lord Garmadon, who is coming through the gates of the afterworld, as was told in a prophecy years ago. In fact, these Skeletons being here only proves that he's growing in power. We'll need as much help as we can to stop him."

Cole hesitated before answering, looking to Zane, who nodded. The gesture passed between them a strange silent form of support.

The Pirate Captain turned to Kai. "What do I have to do?"

Kai looked to Jay then to Cole, a hard but resigned look in his eyes. "For starters? Trust me."

No hesitation. "Done."

"Then you get to meet the Empress."

Jay shook his head. "I can't believe this is a thing that is happening. Teaming up with a Samurai, a Prince, and a _Pirate_—all against the Lord of Darkness Incarnate, leader of the dead and keeper of the skeletons. Great. Just great. Exactly how I expected this to go down. I can't believe this." He shook his head and rubbed a hand through his russet hair, looking surprised as his hand came away slightly bloody.

The prince hesitated a moment before speaking. "I can." They all looked to him. "When I was young, I had a vision," the pirate captain looked up in interest "about four pillars of gold standing as a barrier against an incoming darkness, stopping it from consuming a garden of green light. At first I did not understand what it meant, and neither did my father. But know that I see us, meeting here, together, all meeting coincidentally, I know that it means that we must stand against Garmadon to protect my younger brother."

They all absorbed this silently. Somehow, knowing that they were destined to come together, made more sense than Kai could actually explain. He almost laughed, thinking of how his sister would react to all of this.

There was a thoughtful silence before Cole cursed, shaking his head ruefully. "I grabbed the wrong prince," he said.

"Yes, you did," Zane replied kindly.

Cole laughed harder, but there was pain unspoken in the sound.

In the distance, the _Bounty _finally began to arrive.

* * *

The crew of the _Bounty_ was informed quickly of their changed fate and was made to get ready to turn the ship around, heading back into the mainland of Ninjago, headed towards the palace of the Empress. Cole was taken back into his berth by Zane, who commented dryly that they were making too much of a habit of this, eliciting a shocked look from the pirate. "Oh gods," he had said, "You have a sense of humor."

Kai found himself milling around the deck uselessly as the ship took off, swaying slightly under his feet as they sped through the air, cutting a swath across the sky. Finally, he approached the second in command, a man with a distinct hairdo of carefully arranged brown hair. The pirate looked at him not with animosity but with a sort of bored congeniality. "Can I help you with something?"

"I, just, ah…" Kai looked sheepish. "I'm not sure what my job is, here."

The first mate smiled in amusement. "Your partner there doesn't seem to be as awkward as you," he said, nodding up at where Jay was currently being directed by an engineer on the running of the engines despite his small wounds from the battle with the skeletons, which had been mostly obscured from the crew. "Dareth," he said after a moment, offering his hand.

"Kai." They shook and a bit of the awkwardness melted away. "How long have you been with Captain Cole?"

"Ever since his father had the ship, round nine years ago," he said.

"His father had the ship before him?"

"Yeah. Back then, the ship was run on coal, and it left a line of black smoke wherever it went. He was called the Royal Blacksmith. But then… the accident happened, Cole took over, we went electric, and voila," he spread out his arms, "The Black Pirate Cole as we know him today."

Kai chuckled a bit. "I never… when you hear stories about infamous pirates you never stop to think that they have completely normal backstories."

"Well, not completely normal," Dareth allowed. "He did run off for a few years."

Kai eyed him. "Where did he go?"

Dareth shrugged. "Not my place to ask, even as his first mate. He had some huge argument with his father, about inheriting the ship, and he ran off. We never heard wind of him until the old Captain had an accident, got hurt up really bad—all crushed up inside, you know? Well then after he's gone, and we don't know where to turn, suddenly Cole shows up, with this huge golden scythe strapped to his back. Well, he took over, and had some plan in his mind, about how to get his father back."

Kai chewed at his lips, thinking about his own father's death, years ago. Would he have gone to the same lengths as Cole, to bring him back? He could only imagine Cole's anger at having his father's soul dangled before him and then being snatched away.

Dareth looked closely at his face for a moment before adding, "They might not have seen eye-to-eye on everything, from the piracy to the ship to whichever accapella groups were better, but it was his duty as his son to inherit the ship. He may have gritted his teeth about it, but he did it. I don't want you thinking that he chose this life in any way."

"You chose it," Kai mused aloud.

Dareth shrugged. "I was a teacher in a small town, but then the winds turned, the crops dried up, and everyone left. That's when Lou found me, offered me a spot. He saved my life, in a way."

Kai didn't respond to this, looking out over the horizon. "Do you believe in the shadow realm?" he finally asked. "That it can be opened?"

"I think that you know better than me about that," Dareth said, eyes betraying that he knew more than he let on, and then left to do other work on the other side of the ship, leaving Kai to look out over the setting sun. He was heading home again.

* * *

At the palace, the Empress gave out the order for the clockmaker who had alerted her to the crisis of the shadow realm to be brought to her, to answer her questions about what else his machines had predicted.

"He's gone, your highness," a servant bowed to her, voice wavering. "His house had been burned to the ground, and a bit was still smoldering when we arrived. Black and purple flames, your majesty. What does that—"

"Thank you," the Empress said quickly. "That will be all."

"What's going on?" Lloyd asked as he entered the throne room, face despondent. The Empress looked at him impassively. The boy destined to save the world.

"Nothing you need to worry about," she said. "Not yet."

* * *

**He's gonna have to start worrying soon, though.**

**Review, please?**


	5. Chapter 5: Iron

**Aaaand we're back! EARLY!**

**I was having such a good day, with my AP tests and most of my finals done, that I sat down and slapped out this chapter with my free time (I really hate leaving you guys for so long, I really do). Of course, this means that the next update is going to be farther on... but fear not! This story, and you readers, are one of my top priorities.**

**Okay, here we go...**

**As always, idea by aychaye on tumblr, fanfiction by me, and cover art by witchygirl009 on tumblr.**

* * *

A young woman stood in a back room of the Palace of the Empress, hands streaked with oil and grime, her short black hair sticking up precariously with sweat in a way not unlike her brother's. Nya was elbow deep inside a box of prickly cogs and wheels, a wrench in one hand and a screwdriver shoved into her belt. The young girl wore the clothes she had come to the palace to from the village, a simple red tunic and pants with a bright yellow sash. In these clothes, her mask of red and white makeup missing from her plain face, Nya was no longer a leader of Ninjago; she was a girl with a fondness for machinery and a heart full of knowledge.

The Empresses of Ninjago were a long line of nonrelated women, chosen by the House of Wu. The Wu family covered the spiritual leadership of Ninjago; The Empresses, the day-to-day politics. Nya had been chosen by the Chosen Prince of House Wu, a young man she had never met—although she had sent her brother and samurai after him when he had been kidnapped—after he experienced a vision of her. And suddenly a small village girl was leader of a nation.

Nya still enjoyed her few private minutes; however, creating things like automatons and small robotic pieces that she had eventually combined all together into her greatest creation: a walker, like the kind fabled to have been used by the first Master of House Wu.

"Excuse me, Empress," a voice tunneled from the front door to Nya's quarters through a tube she had installed, alerting her in her garage that she was needed.

Nya surveyed herself quickly. She had no time to add on the makeup, so she drew a veil over her face and slid long gloves over her grease stained arms, adding on her elaborate wig and robe, rushing past her creations to the elevator that brought her quickly to her rooms. She emerged from the secret door, made sure it was locked cleanly behind her. She then opened the door for the elderly messenger.

"Yes?" she asked as he bowed low.

"It's the Samurai," the messenger told her breathlessly, as her heart soared with hope, "he has come home."

* * *

When Nya had left home to take her place as Empress, she did not want to leave her brother behind, and yet protocol dictated that she tell no one; the Empress was always just that, the Empress, no family or ties. She was an image, a figure, an idol, not something considered fully real. But Nya was clever, and, as always, she had a plan.

From her village, before she left, she gave her first Empress order: to make young blacksmith Kai a Samurai. He was called to the Palace at once, but he was slow to leave her.

"Are you sure that you'll be okay alone?" he had asked her as she piled his bags and belongings around him as he waited for a dragon to fetch him.

"I can handle myself," she reminded him with a cheeky grin. He returned it with a chuckle, leaning in to kiss her forehead.

"Yeah, I bet you can."

Not minutes after he had left, she summoned the Royal Guard to take her away as well.

Kai had no idea.

He kneeled before her in the throne room, eyes cast down to show his reverence for her, sitting on her golden throne, now fully done up in her uniform, lines of red and white swirling around her eyes and mouth, exaggerating them and masking them through it. He had no idea that his younger sister no longer resided at their family home, and that she was really the woman he had pledged his life to.

Beside the newly returned Kai kneeled two other men; the third, as dictated by his honor as a Prince, remained standing, with is eyes politely lowered.

"Empress," Kai began in a reverent voice before cracking a smile. "Miss me?"

The heads of the man in black, kneeling beside him, and the man in blue on the other side, snapped to him in shock before watching her reaction carefully.

The Empress smiled. "More than I can say," she replied sweetly, and his smile grew. She turned to look at Prince Zane directly. "How are you, Prince Zane?"

He gave a short bow. "I am well, your Highness."

Her dark eyes moved to the two kneeling men. "And you are?"

The one in blue jumped in quickly, looking at her in a way that made her cheeks warm, but did not make her uncomfortable. "Name's Jay, your majesty, I'm Sheriff of Scraptown."

Nya felt one eyebrow move upwards in a question. Why did Kai bring her a Sheriff?

She turned next to the remaining man, dressed in black, eyes locked on the ground, never looking up at her from beneath the brim of his black seafarer's hat. "And you are his Deputy, I suppose?"

He laughed darkly, looking her straight in the face. A cold chill traveled down her spine at the darkness of his eyes. "I wouldn't say that."

Jay shot him a glare fit to set fire to rock, and Kai closed his eyes, seemingly counting down to zero from ten, while Zane surveyed it all with an impassive look bordering on amusement. Nya was less entertained.

"Captain Cole?" she inquired in the same sweet tone, "Tell me one reason why I shouldn't have you executed for treason and piracy."

He had the blessing of a paled face at this note. His dark eyes lowered to the ground once more. "I've information, Highness, that could prove useful. I've got a ship, no other like it."

Nya considered him for a moment before looking once more to Kai. "I believe you have a story for me, my Samurai."

Kai's smile filled her with memories of a childhood spent barefoot in the dirt, listening to the ringing of iron in the forge.

"My Empress, I've a story like no other."

* * *

It took him most of the day, but the story was told. Lord Garmadon, amassing his forces in the Shadow World, the bridge world between their world and the world of the dead, the Afterworld. All was done according to a prophecy found eons past, that told that the Destined Prince of House Wu, young Lloyd, would defeat his father and save the world from destruction. Lord Garmadon had sent out Cole to capture this Prince, but because of Zane's ability to have visions of the future, he had evaded the abduction by allowing himself to be stolen in Lloyd's place. Cole was to take his captured Prince to an entrance beyond the empty sea and enter the Shadow World there. Once there, he would receive the soul of his father, dead in an accident, and go on his way.

"I lost him before I could… we had an argument," Cole admitted, head ducked low to hide how his cheeks reddened shyly under the gaze of the Empress and the three others, who he thought were not aware of his history. Nya softened towards him slightly. She and Kai had lost their father too young, as well.

The young Sheriff remained strangely quiet during the telling, watching Nya's face with a rather dreamy expression, even as Zane and Cole added to Kai's tale with a brief recounting of their growing friendship while on the _Bounty._

"I would like permission to contact my King Father and warn him to keep Lloyd safe at all costs," Zane said respectfully, head bowed.

"The King of Ninjago left his palace, and we have not been able to contact him," Nya told him, gently, heart flinching as the prince's face fell… "But your brother is safe within the palace." Zane looked up hopefully.

"There is much to discuss, and much to plan," Nya declared, "but it grows late. You will be given rooms in the palace, and time to rest. Tomorrow, we will meet and strategize. Agreed?" All four men nodded quickly.

Zane left to find his brother, Cole to get some sleep and to have someone look at his wounds. Kai turned towards his own rooms with the intention of contacting his sister, and Jay hesitated in the hallway, watching after Cole as he walked beside Zane, who was offering to once again tend to the still-healing cuts on his back. The pirate hesitated and stuttered out a negative, before turning quickly to make his own way to his rooms. The Prince watched after him serenely.

Jay felt alone, adrift in a rushing sea, left conspicuously behind. Kai fought for his Empress—not an _unfortunate _position, from Jay's perspective—Zane for his destiny and brother, Cole for his family. What did he have to fight for?

_A town burning. A bank, empty of gold and jewels. An abandoned Sheriff star, among the glass and wood debris… a vengeance that needed to be had._

Jay turned on his heel and reentered the throne room with resolution.

* * *

Nya's eyes widened a bit when the door opened with a knock. The man entering—The Sheriff, Nya reminded herself—paused halfway in the door before wincing, his momentary drive lost.

"I should've knocked, right?" he asked, and without waiting for an answer, shut the door loudly in front of him. He waited a moment before knocking politely on the carved wood.

"Enter," Nya said, smiling despite herself.

The Sheriff re-entered, nervously holding a wide-brimmed cowboy hat in his hands. His hair had been hastily finger-combed within an inch of its life, and his one scarred eyebrow was slanted in such a way to convey both humor and seriousness.

"Your majesty, ma'am," he said, out of reflex, and gave a short bow, nowhere near as low as it needed to be for an Empress, but she let it slide.

"I remember you," Nya said. "You are the sheriff that saved my samurai's life. And yet I do not remember your name."

He looked mightily pleased with himself. "Yes, ma'am, that's me. Name's Jay."

"It is a pleasure to see you again, Jay," she said before noticing her word choice and blushing behind her white and red makeup. He likewise did the same, tugging on the collar of his shirt to draw it away from his flushed neck.

"Did you want to tell me something?" she gently prodded once she had her emotions back in check.

"Um. Yes ma'am. It's about Captain Cole."

She tensed. "Yes?"

"I… I've had a run-in with him before. A couple years back."

The tone of his voice was not reassuring to her. "What happened?"

"Truthfully? I got my ass handed to me on a silver platter."

She made a very un-empress-like snort of amusement, and covered her mouth with her hand.

"I have a score to settle with him," Jay continued, rather proud of himself that he had managed to crack the unwavering facade, if only just a bit. "And I know that your beef with him is probably bigger than mine, what with it involving royalty and kidnappings and evil dark lords of shadow realms…"

"But?" she prompted.

He gathered up as much courage as he could muster and looked into the Empress's eyes; with full intention of telling her what was what, and not backing down no matter what she said…

Oh. Her eyes were very pretty.

He swallowed heavily and forgot what he was about to say. "I… uh… I'd like to take him back home to stand trial there, and see if I can even the score against him. If that's okay with you, ma'am."

"I would like to, but—"

"I know I'm not royalty," Jay cut in. Nya was struck speechless. As Empress she had never been interrupted before. "And I know that I'm not even a big player up here on cloud nine; I'm not a samurai or a wise man or an adopted prince. But down there in Scraptown that don't matter much. We've only got each other and a whole lot of dirt and metal. And Captain Cole… he hurt us. Hurt us real bad. And I'd like to help my own out, if I can."

"You may not be royalty," the Empress mused after a minute during which Jay imagined every possible way he could be put to death for such rudeness to the ruler of half of Ninjago, "but you are very well spoken, Sheriff Jay. The Captain is yours."

He let out a small sigh of relief and bowed again. "Thank you," he said, and the emotion heavy in his voice struck a chord deep inside Nya. As he turned to leave, she called out for him to wait. He turned around, one hand still on the doorknob.

"You say that royalty doesn't matter in Scraptown," she said.

"I did," he nodded. "What of it?"

"What do you think of me, Jay?" she asked, sounding very young, "As an Empress. As a person. I've never… I've never met someone like you and had a chance to ask."

"I think you love your country," he said without pause to consider. "I think that you love your people. There are worse things."

She felt a small piece of relief which was cut short when he surprised her by speaking again.

"And, Empress? If you ask me… you'd be just as beautiful without the makeup." Face flushed, he let himself quickly out of the room and sprinted down the hall in case she got it in her head to call out after him to come and explain himself.

Nya, once again alone in the throne room, felt a pleasant heat rise in her cheeks, encased in thick layers of red and white makeup. A mask that perhaps she could see herself remove in the future.

_You'd be just as beautiful without the makeup._

* * *

Kai, in his familiar room, tried to pen a letter to his sister. Crumpled it. Tossed it to one wall, where it bounced off and tumbled away. Finally he buried his face in his hands, back heavy with a weight he couldn't see.

How could he explain it all to her, his baby sister, left alone to care for the family's blacksmith shop, with him so far away, kept too busy to send letters and receiving very few from her in return? How could he articulate on the page the situation he was in, about to plan an attack on the Lord of the Undead, keeper of the Shadow realm, where listless spirits hovered before moving onto the Afterworld? How could he inform her that he might not survive?

Hours of thought, and he still had no answer for himself.

* * *

Jay's face burned into his pillow as he repeated every line he had blathered to the Empress—finding faults, and mispronunciations, moments where he must have come across as nothing but a country bumpkin.

He groaned into the stuffing of the pillow. "Way to go, Jay. You're not even _close _to her level."

But, still.

The sound of her laughter surrounded him in a sea of bells, but instead of drowning, he took a long swim.

* * *

Nya burrowed farther into the mass of silk sheets on her large and elegant bed, ears tinted pink.

"Stupid thing to say to him," she noted to herself, summarizing her entire conversation with the Sheriff. "You're nothing but a mask. He likes the mask, not you." She tried ceaselessly to convince herself of this life.

But, still, his words cycled through her mind.

_You'd be just as pretty without the makeup._

* * *

Zane did not sleep easily.

Instead of dreams, he only saw expansive and tiring darkness, or repeats of visions that had been plaguing him, and, tonight of all nights, he did not want to be kept up by the sight of Cole's eyes, staring at him blankly as blood gathered at the corners of his mouth from a wound that Zane could not see, only sense, rock crushing bone against blood and skin and breaking, tearing—

The Palace of the Empress kept a doctor on staff at all times, and when their meeting with the Empress was finished, the Prince sought him out for a sleeping solution. The blue liquid was housed in a glass vial, and Zane surveyed it slowly, sitting alone on his bed, before swallowing the bitter mixture with a shudder. He had never resorted to chemicals before in his life to help him sleep, always riding out his visions tolerantly, but enough, for him, was finally enough.

He lay down in the darkened room the Empress had given him, and his heartbeat matched up with the clock ticking in one corner.

The sleep promised by the vial of blue liquid was deep and heavy, pinning Zane's tired limbs to the bed and allowing him to slip, uneasily, under a lead curtain that dulled his thoughts and the tumult of his heart. There was no sound, for a while, aside from the ticking of the clock on the wall. But soon even that faded away.

Zane stirred slightly as he heard the sound of rustling sheets, and felt the slight creaking of his bed. The prince lifted open his eyes wearily, and his breath hitched at what he was seeing. Cole was above him, legs straddling Zane's waist and keeping him pinned in place, not that the prince wanted, or even felt the need, to move.

The pirate looked serenely down at him, propped up on his hands, chest bare and hair looking privately messed, black eyes shining out like shards of the night. A frond of colored skin, a slight whorl of ink from the tattoo across his back, spilled over Cole's shoulder, as Zane could be as the pirate lowered himself closer, onto his forearms. He did not make a single sound, only tilted his head in such a way that was a question. Heat radiated off of him, searing Zane through the thin bedclothes that separated them.

Zane answered the silent question by closing his eyes in anticipation, angling his chin up.

There was no contact, for a moment. And then something warm and wet hit Zane's cheek, rolling away and leaving a sticky trail behind. A metallic smell reached the prince and he opened his eyes as another drop of liquid struck the corner of his mouth, rolling away bright scarlet and leaving behind the taste of iron.

Cole was still above him, but his eyes were open, unseeing.

Blood dripped from his mouth, open in the last stages of a scream.

Zane's breathing accelerated as he took it all in; the pirate, suspended over his bed, mouth alive with color, eyes blank and lifeless. The prince gasped as he found the source of the wound: a shard of rock protruded from the pirate's chest, the tip dripping languid spots of blood over Zane's own heart; the shard missed touching him by mere inches.

_Rock crushing blood and bone and skin and heart, bone and rock and red and black and pain and death and defiant eyes looking at him and a mouth flooded with red and he's screaming, he's screaming in his eyes, dead, dead, dead,_dead—

The Prince sat up quickly, but he passed through the vision like a ghost, breaking out of the dream and into wakefulness. He was covered in a thin layer of sweat and his heart was heaving up against his ribs, oddly in sync with the ticking of the clock, each movement of the pendulum like a bomb being released inside Zane's ears.

There was a light and tentative knocking at the door. "Zane?" Cole asked, cracking the door open just enough to peer inside, "Are you alright? I thought I heard you yelling."

Zane was glad for the darkness; Cole could not see how he watched his form silhouetted in the doorway with the gaze of a drowning man facing an incoming storm.

"I am well," he said, faintly. "It was only a dream."

Cole hesitated, as if he meant to ask more, but he simply nodded his head and left Zane to his ghosts and his dreams.

The Prince did not sleep again that night.

* * *

'_This is crazy,' _Cole thought to himself as he lay awake in his room, smaller than what had been given to Zane, as he had seen when he checked in on the strangled shouts he had heard through the wall that separated them. _'I can't believe that this is actually happening._'

The idea that _he_, Cole, black sheep of the black pirate line, thief, killer, unworthy son, would be considered worthy to work with the Empress of Ninjago, not to mention the Prince and the Samurai… and also the strangely familiar Sheriff, if only just barely. Where there were once enemies, there was what was almost friendship…

A shiver traveled down his back, drawing unseen patterns across his skin, as he considered the Prince. Friendship. Something like it, but not quite.

Cole shoved all thoughts violently from his head. He turned over to one side and forced himself to sleep, even as ghostly fingers traced lines across his back, now mostly healed from his wounds.

* * *

Funny, how no one had died, and yet they were all haunted.

While the five tried to sleep but were too frightened of their own minds, a man with a long white beard and a hat woven from reeds wrapped himself in a cloak and slipped away from the Palace, walking slowly but surely across darkened roads until he reached an unassuming tea shop on the edge of the village.

The store keeper was roused by his banging on the door, and when the irritated woman answered the door, the Kind of Ninjago grinned understandingly at her.

"I'm here for a special order," he told her plainly.

The store keeper lifted one eyebrow and haughtily sniffed, "What?"

His eyes glinted in the darkness from underneath his wide hat.

"I believe it is called, 'Traveler's Tea'."

"You aiming to kill yourself?" the woman snapped, but nonetheless placed the asked brew onto the table.

"I'm aiming to visit a long lost friend," he answered shortly, taking the tea, "my brother."

"People who drink Traveler's Tea don't come back," the shopkeeper warned harshly.

"Then I won't bother you again," he answered shortly, backing out of the shop and leaving questions and shadows in his wake.

* * *

**Review, please... reviews remind me of the people who love this story, and really encourage me to write more ;)**


	6. Chapter 6: Fire

**Happy Summer, Destined Fans! No that I'm out of school I will have more time to write, which means that Destined will update more often! Yay!**

**Original idea by aychaye on tumblr, fanfiction by me.**

**This chapter was beta-ed by the lovely paradorx~**

* * *

"I am coming with you."

"Frankly, your majesty, you are not coming with us under _any _circumstances," Kai replied.

"Frankly, Kai, I don't take orders from you," she snapped in response.

The Samurai ground his teeth in frustration. The Empress had watched over the four men as they made their plan of attack: taking the battle to Garmadon before he could wreak havoc on Ninjago. The prophecies were unclear, and archaic, and so although they knew that the golden weapons were involved, their exact place was unknown. All four of them agreed, however, that they couldn't wait before making a move. Garmadon had to be stopped before reaching their world.

"It's going to be too dangerous, your majesty," Cole broke in. "The Dark Island is rumored to be cursed, filled with horrible monsters."

"Fascinating," the Empress replied dryly, "I should like to see it myself."

"Your majesty—" Kai began again.

"That is all the time I will waste arguing with you, Kai," the Empress said with an air of finality. "You will not challenge me on this matter again."

Kai bent his head in understanding, teeth grinding loud enough for Jay to hear.

"Well," he said, clapping and rubbing his hands together, "Let's get underway."

* * *

Kai shoved clothing and some extra weapons into a bag in his rooms, and paused, hearing the wood floor outside of his room squeal under the weight of a standing man. Slowly, the Samurai turned on his heel and caught a flash of green darting out of sight to hide behind the door.

"Prince Lloyd?" he asked in a confused tone.

A blond head peeked around the doorframe once again. Lloyd nervously shuffled his feet. "Um. Hi," he said.

"…Hi," Kai returned. "Can I help you with something."

"No, I just—"

"Okay," Kai said, slinging his bag up on one shoulder, "Glad we could have this talk."

"I want to go with you this time," Lloyd said in a rush, hurrying to keep up with Kai's purposely-long strides.

"And like last time,_no_. Don't you get it, you're too important to just throw into danger."

"I know the prophecies! It's my destiny to defeat my father!"

Kai stopped and whirled around. "You think it's that easy? Your father is one of the most powerful beings in the universe, a force for pure evil. You're a child. Your 'destiny' isn't supposed to happen until you're older. We're just buying you some time. You _can't _come with us."

Lloyd stood silently, taking all of this in with a frustrated look on his face. As he thought over how many walls were being thrown between him and the story that had haunted him since he was an infant, Kai walked away, leaving him standing alone.

* * *

The _Destiny's Bounty _was outfitted for flight, with some number of the crew left behind to make room for Kai, Jay, Zane, and the Empress, who swept aboard in her finery and red and white makeup like a firestorm. Cole was at once at home aboard the ship, shouting orders and giving directions, the golden scythe strapped to his back. He mounted the helm and stood before the great wooden wheel.

He whistled down below. "Kai, see to the engines. Zane, the upper sails. Jay, put away those casting ropes."

"Aye aye," Jay said in a mocking tone, looping rope over and over itself in his arms, and making his way towards an indicated storage compartment.

Jay uttered a sharp and impressively harsh curse word as he stumbled backwards in surprise, hands going to his sidearms and pulling them out at the ready, sapphires glinting in the molded gold.

The door to the storage room that Jay had just opened creaked wide, showing that tangled in a coil of rope stood a young blonde boy in dusty green robes.

After a moment Zane said simply, "Lloyd," and moved to stand in front of him, arms crossed. Kai had a less positive reaction.

"You _idiotic _little _snake_. I told you not to come."

"You two know this pipsqueak?" Jay asked, eyes moving from Zane to Kai and back again.

Lloyd crossed his arms with a stormy expression. "I am the Destined Prince of Ninjago! I do what I want."

"Well, I didn't vote for you," Jay muttered, holstering his separated nunchuck. Cole walked past him and shouldered Zane and Kai, still fuming, aside. He crouched down to be at eye level with the young boy.

"Do you know who I am, kid?" he asked. Lloyd gulped.

"Y-you're the pirate captain. The one that t-took Zane."

"That's right. And let me tell you something," he grabbed the back of Lloyd's robes and lifted him up to hang from his hands as he stood up, "I don't like stowaways on my ship. Royalty or not."

Lloyd squirmed impressively but ineffectually. "Release me!"

Cole's thick eyebrows drew together over a pair of hard and immovable eyes. "Kid, stowaways on my ship get two options. Option one: a long walk off a short plank." He pointed Lloyd towards the direction of the plank in question, awaiting a poor soul to walk down it. Lloyd made a strangled squawk in the back of his throat. Cole set him back down on his feet, turning him to face Kai and Zane. "And option two, for stupid little kids only: apologize."

Lloyd's face flooded with color and he stared at his feet. "Well?" Cole asked.

The Destined Prince muttered something to his toes.

"What was that, your majesty?" Kai asked, smirk set and ready. Zane remained impassive.

"I said I'm sorry, you stupid—" he was cut off as Jay clamped one hand over his mouth, shaking his head lightly as a warning.

"Close enough," Cole allotted, stepping past the commotion to dump in the rope that Jay had been in control of in the first place. Kai argued loudly that it was nowhere near close enough, not for him, and everyone diligently ignored him.

* * *

Days passed tensely on the ship. For the most part, the Empress stayed in her cabins, taking occasional long looks at the machinery in the bowels of the ship, dropping complicated words concerning engineering that Cole himself wasn't even fully aware of. Jay followed her around like a lovesick puppy and enjoyed swinging around on the upper ropes of the ship. Zane stuck close by Cole's side, for lack of anything else to do. They could be heard talking in low voices with each other, laughing quietly to themselves. Zane would stand at Cole's shoulder as he pointed out star formations on a map, and Cole would watch intently as Zane told him of the medicinal properties on some herbs, how to clean a wound, and how to keep fever away. Kai was always at the elbow of the Empress, when she would allow it, and when she was in her cabin he tended to gravitate towards the first mate, Dareth, who was happy to lead him around the ship and get the normally landlocked Samurai more at home in the sky.

Lloyd was kept out of the way as much as possible, left to pout in his room. No one sought him out for friendship.

They rarely spoke of what was to come. It was a nearly suicidal mission, they knew. Garmadon was set on emerging into Ninjago and taking back what had been his land. The doorway to the Shadow Realm was located on an island rumored to be cursed and filled with monsters. If anything, they could only delay Garmadon long enough for Lloyd to reach the age necessary… and now, that plan was ruined. Where they went, Lloyd would have to follow.

Days passed. Finally, the cry of "Land ho!" went up amongst the crew, and it was met with grim, determined silence.

Cole met with the Empress and the others in her cabin and told them that he had no intention of landing on the island because of the dark words surrounding it. "Even if it's not true," he said, "I'd rather be safe than sorry. I don't trust it. We can swing around it to the coordinates for the portal on the highest peak, and get to it without touching the ship to land."

And so it was agreed.

* * *

The night after the island was spotted on the horizon, Cole stood at the wheel of the Bounty, hands resting lightly on the wood. He stared straight ahead, where the Island of Darkness grew steadily closer.

Zane mounted the steps to the helm, taking a seat behind Cole, also watching forward. The Captain waited in silence for several minutes before speaking.

"Do you think that we're going to die?"

The Prince hesitated. "I see nothing when I look to the future; I am blind."

Cole pushed away from the helm. "I'll take that as a yes."

"Are you afraid of dying?" Zane asked, watching as Cole surveyed the helm, hands hung uselessly at his sides, hungry for something to do.

"No."

They waited in silence. Finally, Cole turned and walked towards Zane. When he stood close by, facing him, he opened and closed his mouth, looking for words that wouldn't come.

He lifted one hand, moving a piece of white hair behind Zane's ear and hovering there. "If we die, I just want you to know…" he was unable to find the words.

The Prince brought his arms around Cole's waist. "I know."

There were no more words for many minutes.

And the Island grew ever closer.

* * *

Elsewhere, a man stood straight and tall, surrounded by shadows. Beneath his feet, dull and faded gemstones the size of eggs clicked and clinked together as he strode over them at a steady pace. Inside, souls sighed and pressed for release that would never come, not while they still inhabited the land of the half-dead.

Wu walked through miles and miles without ever tiring. The empty, sunless sky yawned above him, and fires raged over the ground on either side of him.

And still he walked.

* * *

Cole woke up to the smell of burning wood.

He was groggy with sleep, and it took him a moment to connect this observation to where he was currently sleeping, but when it hit him, it hit him hard.

"Fire," he said, almost to himself, before swinging out of his hammock and shouting as loud as he could,_ "FIRE!_" he slammed open the door to his quarters beneath the helm and fell back, covering his eyes against the heat and inhaling smoke filled with embers. The entire deck of the Bounty was on fire with hellish black flames that case a purple light. Cole felt the word Garmadon fill his mouth before he coughed. The flames seemed to give off an otherworldly sedating effect, making the fire blur as Cole's eyes drooped low tiredly.

He forced himself awake and ran to the other sleeping quarters.

"Everybody up!" he shouted, banging open doors and making enough of a racket to wake stone. Kai appeared in the doorway of his small berth, hair even more askew than usual, if such a thing was possible.

His sword was in his hands but his eyes were foggy with sleep. "What's going on?" he muttered before pinching the bridge of his nose in his fingers, eyes screwed shut against a wave of sleep.

"Garmadon found us and knows what we're going to do," Cole said in a deathly serious voice. "We're going down." This cold fact woke Kai up quickly as he followed Cole down the hallway as he woke Zane, who seemed to be perfectly awake, and Jay, who rubbed his face and muttered curses. They followed Cole's quick sprint to the helm of the ship.

"Where are we supposed to go?!" Kai demanded. "Safe land is already too far behind us to turn around!"

"I saw the island in the distance last night. It should be close enough for a landing," Cole said, and his eyes rested on Zane for longer than was necessary. "We weren't supposed to land on it, I know, just swing around it to the portal because of the curses around it, but in my book cursed is better than dead."

Kai found no argument against this logic.

"Gather as much supplies as you can salvage!" Cole shouted to his crew as he took his place at the wheel. "We're making an emergency landing!"

"Wass goin' on?" Lloyd muttered, half asleep on his feet as he joined the others, stumbling slightly.

Kai and Jay shared a look. "Nothing you need to worry about, Lloyd," Kai said carefully. "Go back to sleep."

Lloyd obeyed and sat down at Zane's feet, eyes closed against the horrors of the ship burning away beneath his feet.

Cole met Kai's gaze. "You might want to hold onto something," he said, and threw the wheel sideways. Through the smoke as the deck tilted precariously beneath him, Kai saw the island in question appear tantalizingly close, a thick jungle of coconut trees and a few bare peaks of dark stone. The tallest peak was hidden by storm clouds, but a glint of something bright winked at him beneath the billowing darkness. Kai pushed it from his head when the wood beneath his feet groaned.

"Cole," Jay said.

"Cole," he insisted.

"COLE!" he shouted, and the Captain barked out a response that he was listening, despite how he was seemingly absorbed in guiding down his ruined ship to the small island below.

"The sails!" Jay said, and at that moment, it seemed as if the ship collapsed on itself, the sails burning away and the mast striking the deck hard enough to shatter the wood. Metal screamed alongside pirates, and fire bloomed over the air.

Kai held his breath as the ship met the shoreline and everything fell to pieces.

* * *

A loud crashing sound came from the sky. The gray-haired woman rushed from her cave, her scrolls and her translations, and stood on the rocky peak as she witnessed a ball of dark flames and wood slam into the beach.

Misako felt her heart rise in her throat at the sight.

_It has begun._

* * *

Sand crumbled underneath Zane's wandering hands. The Prince was collapsed on his back, arms and legs spread out in the golden sand, which was slowly warming beneath the morning light that penetrated Zane's closed eyelids.

Zane opened his eyes and saw Cole an arm's distance away, unconscious. Pushing himself to his feet, the Prince noted that the _Bounty _lay in ruins several yards away, still burning. Crew members were scurrying about, pulling men from the wreckage and gathering as many supplies as they could. It seemed as if only a handful of the already meager crew was still alive, the first mate, Dareth, included. He was directing the men to pile the supplies a safe distance away from the black fire that still smoldered on the planks of the _Bounty_.

Zane pushed himself to his feet and walked over to Cole, shaking his shoulder gently to wake him up. He did so slowly, with an unfocused look in his dark eyes. "Zane?" he asked after a minute, looking around but not quite seeing his surroundings.

"Yes," Zane replied, helping him to sit up with an arm around his shoulders, "How do you feel?"

"Truthfully?" Cole asked, wrinkling his face and squinting at nothing in particular, "Hung over." He let Zane's arm remain around him even as he began to wake up in full.

"That makes two." Jay approached, having lost his hat in the commotion. A dark spot of ash dulled his sheriff's star, still pinned proudly to his shirt. Kai, the Empress, and Lloyd were nowhere to be found.

"What are the damages?" Cole asked, finally standing, if a bit unsteady, on his feet.

"We lost five crewmen," Jay said and Cole sighed with a pained expression. "We couldn't find the bodies, though," Jay continued. "So far as I figure it, that fire wasn't meant to kill us. It was supposed to transport us."

"Garmadon wanted Lloyd alive," Zane said. Jay nodded in agreement.

"Speaking of which," Jay said after a momentary silence, "Has anyone seen little lord Fauntleroy?"

There was a silence that no one dared to break.

* * *

Kai pushed himself up, hands sinking into the sand, and looked around wildly for the Empress. He could see the smoke from what he assumed was the wreckage of the _Bounty,_separated from him by a large rock ridge that split the beach in two. The Samurai shuddered to think of what would have happened if he had collided with it instead of his relatively soft patch of sand.

He looked about quickly, and spotted her, sitting on a dune several yards away from him. She was surrounded by the remains of her royal robes and decorations, and her hands were over her face.

"Empress!" Kai scurried over to her."Are you alright?"

"Get back!" she shouted, gesturing him away with one hand while covering her face with the mask of makeup had been rubbed away, leaving it bare."Don't look."

Kai hesitated."Empress… it's just 're safe." He kneeled down in the sand a few yards away from her, to show that he would not force her hand.

Her shoulders began to shake, and he was worried that she was crying, before he heard the sound of her laughter."Oh, it's just you, isn't it?" she asked, turning towards him, hands away from her face.

Kai stood up quickly."Nya!" His heart hit the ground and he couldn't breathe.

His litter sister smiled up at him from the sand."About time you figured it out, Kai."

He didn't know how to respond.

How could he not see? Her eyes, shining amber, lit from within with fire, were always visible, even when she wore her mask of red and white. They were always there, and yet he never saw how his Empress had his younger sister's eyes, so like his own.

Slowly, he sank down to his knees in the sand. "Nya," he said again. She moved closer and took his hand. "Nya," he repeated. His younger sister. Not safe in the village. But here, on the Dark Island, about to go into the realm of the most dangerous, evil man to ever live.

"_Nya_," he growled, and she withdrew her hand. "How did you-? Why did you-? I don't-?" he began to hyperventilate and stood unsteadily.

"Kai! Kai, calm down."

"_Nya why are you the Empress I don't even-?!" _He sat back down. "We… we are going to talk about this. When I am not freaking out and we are not currently sitting on a cursed, evil island. Alright?"

Nya nodded quickly, short hair cupping her face. "Alright," she agreed, and didn't pull away as he hugged her close. His lips brushed against her forehead as they parted.

"Come on," he said, let's go find the… others." He stooped down near a large piece of debris and tugged at a scrap of cloth hidden there. Indentations in the sand marked footprints leading away from it.

Unsmiling, he held up the piece of green fabric for Nya to see.

She nodded in agreement, and began to untie the remnants of her Empress robes, revealing a sensible red tunic and pants beneath. Kai's eyes widened as he took in the twin blades tucked into the yellow sash around her waist.

"Am I still allowed to order you around?" she asked, eyes flashing at him slyly from beneath thick lashes.

A smile tugged at his lips against his will. "I'm pretty sure I couldn't stop you."

"Then, my Samurai," she smiled in return, "let's go find the child who is supposed to save the world, currently wandering around one of the most dangerous places to exist in this current world."

He chuckled once, darkly. "You said it, sis."

Together, the two entered the jungle.

* * *

**Review, please! Reviews are what keep me writing.**


	7. Chapter 7, part I: Stone

**Okay guys, so, big news for today! This chapter was so long, I split it in two. The second half should be coming up later today.**

**On that note, please enjoy :)**

**Original idea by aychaye, fanfiction by me.**

**Beta'd by the shining star that is my beta-chan, paradorx.**

* * *

The Shadow Realm stretched on forever, it seemed, and yet King Wu could sense how he neared its center, by the scent of darkness and how it grew, soaking into everything. He felt as if when he emerged he could never remove the scent from his clothes.

Mountains reared up on either side of his small but worn walkway, surrounded by the souls of those who never made it through to the Afterworld, hardened into stones resembling dull jewels. Sometimes he would walk a stretch without meeting one, and other times he was pushing aside piles to make room for him to walk.

Finally, he saw it, appearing on the horizon.

A castle, formed from melted stone, the walls melding and dripping together, as if formed from wax candles blown clumsily out, the melted wax sputtering and then drying. It was a castle trying to rip itself apart. Torment was etched into every line, and purple fires that barely cast any light burned in the windows.

Wu barely had a moment to survey his brother's castle before he was surrounded by skeletons.

The largest one gleamed a smile at him, dark light reflecting off of bared teeth. "Come with us," he ordered in a gravelly voice.

Wu glanced around him casually. "Do I have a choice?"

Scimitars of dented metal surrounded him.

"I'll take that as a 'no'."

They led him, ushering him on by spears and swords and clubs and harsh laughter, into the castle, into the main hall, which was empty except for a large throne compiled of bones and decorated with soul stones. On it sat a figure that was familiar to Wu; he had seen that same cocky stretch of legs and arms every day as a child and a young adult. He could still feel the sunlight warming his skin and feel the roughness of the stone underneath his fingertips as he pressed one hand to the wall that his katana had flown over.

"Wu," Garmadon said, sitting on his throne.

"Brother," Wu replied.

With a flick of one blackened hand, Garmadon dismissed his skeletons, who filed out obediently. "It's been a long time," Garmadon said when they were alone.

"Too long," Wu replied. He approached the throne, feet tapping out against the floor in the otherwise silent room.

"Yes, and here we are again, after all these years, brothers to the last." Garmadon stood, and Wu stopped his forward movement, unable, for a moment to comprehend what he was seeing.

Garmadon had four arms, a second set hung below the first, sprouting from his torso, which showed the whiteness of his bones, emerging from blackened, raw flesh. When he saw his brother staring, he spread them out on either side.

"It seems I've outdone you again, little brother," he snarled.

"I've come with a warning," Wu continued once he had his voice under control. Garmadon laughed and walked down the steps from the throne, approaching a table to one side with a selection of cups and a jar of thick black liquid. Wu continued. "There are forces at play that you don't understand. The prophecies are unclear, but there is a great danger hanging over you and your son, a greater darkness for larger than anything you could find here in the Shadow Realm."

"I am the greatest darkness here, Wu."

"You are a shadow. There is goodness in you still, and you don't yet know true darkness, like what is foretold."

Garmadon poured himself a drink and swallowed slowly. "Do you remember, Wu? When I was bitten? When the venom of the snake overtook my blood and turned me away from the light. It cost me a kingdom, when you were named King in my stead."

"You were sick," Wu said, stepping forward once more, "and you are still sick, and in great danger. Let me help you."

Garmadon took a moment to consider this, before speaking. "Because of your cowardice, I lost everything I had ever been promised. Let me return the favor to you. You're not a king here, Wu, you're the frightened little boy who lost his katana over the wall and let your big brother get it for you. Samukai!" The General appeared in the room. "Take my brother to a cell."

Wu gave no resistance.

* * *

"I mean, you could have given me, like, a hint or something."

"Kai."

"I'm not stupid, Nya, I would have figured it out on my own eventually."

She hummed a noncommittal response and Kai felt fire lift up his chest. "I would have figured it out," he insisted.

"Sure you would have." Nya, leading the way through the jungle, looked back over her shoulder and flashed a smile at him. He pouted.

They had been walking through the jungle for several hours, following Lloyd's obvious path, with broken twigs and crushed underbrush. The kid made it easy for them to find him, at least. And so far, they hadn't met anything unsavory.

Kai was about to mention this to his sister, when he heard the growl.

Nya slowly turned around. "What was that?"

"That was the sign for us to start running," Kai said, and took off, Nya at his heels. The growls, and a loud sniffing, followed them quickly, and Kai was too focused on running to look behind him to see what it was.

They ran for what seemed like miles, and Kai felt like he was inhaling the fire from his katana when Nya screeched to a stop at a cliff of pale grey rock, that stretched straight above them without any hand or footholds. The growling grew louder behind them.

"Nya, climb on my shoulders and see if you can reach the ledge," Kai ordered.

"And leave you behind?!"

"You maybe my sister, but you're also the Empress of Ninjago," he replied. "Now, get on!"

Nya was about to argue further when a rope dropped onto Kai's head. He cursed, and looked to see a woman with thick grey hair at the top of the cliff, waving down. "Climb!" she ordered. Nya and Kai looked to each other and nodded, Nya going first and Kai following up after on the swaying rope. When they reached the top of the cliff, the woman helped them up, and they looked over to see a huge, scaled creature with a jaw large enough to swallow them whole, filled with steak knife teeth, waiting below, sniffing around for their scent. After a moment, it walked away from the cliff, and Nya and Kai collapsed in relief.

"Don't relax just yet," the woman said gently, coiling up her rope, "The gronkle is an apex predator, and will hunt down its victims until they are caught. Some gronkles have starved to death when they couldn't reach their chosen prey."

"Fantastic," Kai drawled.

"You're going to have to kill it, if you want to travel freely about the island," the woman continued as if she hadn't heard.

"And how,_exactly,_are we going to do that?" Kai asked, at the same time his sister said, "We're looking for a young boy in green. Has he passed by you?"

The woman started. "Green?" Her eyes fell on the gold katana strapped to Kai's side, the rubies in the hilt glinting in the sunlight. "No, I haven't seen him. You say he's in the jungle?"

"Yeah," Kai sighed. "Who are you, exactly?"

"My name is Misako," the woman greeted them with a short bow, and Nya noted her leafy green eyes, and her faded robes, which looked oddly familiar in style. "I have lived here on the Dark Island for many years, and I can help you kill the gronkle, so that we can find your lost boy."

"How long is this going to take?" Kai asked bluntly. "I don't like the idea of him down there on his own." At Misako's gesture, both fell into step behind her as she lead them into a cave in the cliff, well furnished with rugs, a cot in a corner, bowls of candles, and piles upon piles of scrolls.

"That makes two of us," Misako said. "There are many dangers in the forest. The gronkle, for one, but he will not bother…_the boy_while he still has your scent."

"Happy to help," Kai said, and Nya elbowed him hard in the ribs.

"But there are other dangers," Misako continued, grabbing jars of leaves and a pot of water from her kitchen area, "There are monsters, creatures, and the servants of darkness."

Kai perked up, hand going to his sword. "Skeletons?"

"Worse," Misako said, piling her ingredients onto the table and sweeping off some dusty scrolls. Nya was able to catch a glimpse of gold leaf inside the illustrations before her view was cut off. "Unbeatable creatures called the Stone Army. Made of living stone, fueled by rage and darkness, and lead by one, the strongest of them all, General Kozu. And he'll be looking for L… for the boy. And anyone you brought with you when you crashed here."

Nya and Kai exchanged a look, speaking silently with one another. It was clear that Misako knew more than she let on about Lloyd, and their place here. Every once and a while she would look at Kai's golden katana and then avert her eyes quickly. They could see the thoughts flying through her mind, as fast as lightning, as she set a pot of water on to boil.

"So, what are we going to do with the gronkle?" Kai asked after a moment of silence. They were going to have to trust her, for now.

Misako looked up with intelligent eyes. "We're going to make tea."

* * *

"We have to go after them," Jay said in a stern voice, "It's the _Empress of Ninjago _for chrissakes."

"We need to set up a base camp for protection," Cole countered. "And seeing as all the men here are under my command, you're either going to stick with us or go off on your own."

"Fine!" Jay threw up his hands. "I work better alone, anyways."

"It is unwise to venture alone," Prince Zane added from where he stood calmly to one side, watching the argument take place.

"And it's apparently unwise to put your trust in pirates," Jay hissed, and turned on his heel, making for the jungle.

Throughout their journey to the island, Jay had kept his distance from the scythe-wielding man in black for all he could– not a hard task since he seemed attached to the Prince at the hip. Jay would channel his frustration with being so close to his target and yet so far from administering justice into his work on the ship, tinkering around with the machinery. Perhaps if he understood it, he could make one of his own, to defend the town against further attacks.

The memory of the attack clung to Jay like a dense fog. Occasionally it would clear and he could peer through it, but most days it smothered him. He was Jay the failure. Jay, the last resort of a town in shambles. Jay, who stood by and couldn't stop a man with a golden scythe making off with everything the town had, leaving it in ruins, not fit for anyone worthy to live in. Captain Cole was a constant reminder of this.

"Wait, Sheriff, wait!" Jay stopped walking but did not turn as Cole approached him, muttering to himself.

"Now, you listen to me for one moment without judging me. I don't know you, or what you've been through, but what I did, I did for my family. What's left of it is my crew, and I'm not sending them out into a forest infested with monsters and who knows what else."

Jay chewed the inside of his mouth.

Cole continued. "Look, now I don't doubt your feelings for the Empress—" he held up a hand to keep Jay from interrupting, his face reddened, "but she's better off with Kai. A small group is less noticeable in the jungle. Maybe they'll even find Lloyd."

Jay looked to the trees, tangled with vines and creepers. His mother had once told him, "It's all about perspective". His perspective of Cole as an enemy, not to be reasoned with, would come into trouble, throwing up walls he wouldn't want to be there when it came time to arrest him for his crimes.

And, horribly enough, if it weren't for the memory of the town ransacking, Jay wouldn't have much to hold against the Captain. He was actually an agreeable man, when Jay had to interact with him. He had to keep the perspective of Cole as an enemy, or else he would lose his conviction.

"Fine," Jay snapped out, adding a harshness he didn't feel. "What do you propose we do in the meantime?"

Cole opened his mouth, but then Zane's voice cut in. "Duck!"

Too aware of Prince Zane's visions to question, Jay and Cole hit the sand. A singing of steel over their heads, and a curved blade passed through the air, landing with a splash in the nearby ocean. They shared the same shocked look before they scrambled to their feet. Cole got his footing first and held down a hand for Jay. The Sheriff ignored it on principle.

Out of the gloom of the shaded forest, figures of men began to emerge. They wore stone armor, and striped all their physical skin with red and white paint, so that it was almost indistinguishable. Their eyes glowed an impossible purple.

Cole tilted his head towards Jay. "You see them too, right?"

Jay smiled against his will at the tired tone the pirate took on. "Yup."

Cole pulled out his scythe and stood at the ready, watching with hooded, dark eyes as the line of soldiers— with how they handled themselves they could be only soldiers—approached without making another physical threat.

"Got any ideas, Sheriff?"

"Oh, so I'm the leader now?" His voice dripped with acid.

"You're one of the smartest guys I've ever known," Cole said honestly, and on his other side, Zane nodded in agreement. "Got any idea how to take them down?"

Jay's blue eyes flickered over the ground, and the closest soldier emerged fully from the jungle, feet sinking into the sand. "That scythe still affects the earth?"

"Yeah."

"When I say so, send up a column of sand, right at his chest," he lowered his voice to a whisper, "but only when I say so. Got it?"

Cole nodded.

Jay swung his nunchucks over his head, over and over again, as a high-pitched whining gathered around him, and Cole felt the hair on his head gathering static, sticking up. With a loud crack, Jay pointed one golden six-shooter at the soldier.

"_Now_!" he shouted. Cole buried the scythe in the sand of the beach, a long flume of sand driving like a geyser at the soldier. As it flew, a long blue arc of lightning collided with it, and a wave of heat washed over them. The sand melted, molded, and stuck together into long sharp fangs of glass that impaled the stone man's chest and face, molding around it. The man stopped walking.

"_Damn_," Cole said, for lack of a better response. When the man had stopped, so had the rest of the army, possibly weighing their options before attacking.

"Well?" Jay shouted out, nunchucks at the ready. "Come and get some for yourself!" Cole, beside him, readied his scythe for another downward sweep.

There was a cracking noise.

The glass column that jutted straight into the soldier waved, cracked, and then shattered as he shrugged the molten glass from his stone skin, purple eyes gleaming in his red and white patterned face. His tall helmet of rank showed no signs of any damage, and neither did the rest of him. He made a motion and the line continued forward. He must have been their general.

He spoke a short, guttural sentence in a strange language in Jay's direction.

"Any other ideas, Sheriff?" Cole asked, his voice surprising Jay with its lack of mockery.

"Not really," Jay admitted. Cole nodded, and then rushed the general with a roar, swinging the golden scythe at neck level.

After a moment, Jay followed along behind.

* * *

"How do you know so much about tea?" Kai asked breathlessly.

They had watched her work, obviously a master at her craft, blending together herbs and leaves and dust, boiling and straining, cooling and infusing, until the brew was done, and was an almost impossible bright shade of neon green, and it let off a faint glow that Kai and Nya had never seen before.

Misako hesitated slightly before answering, "I knew a man once. To him… tea was almost an art form. He taught me many things about the properties of certain plants when distilled into tea."

Nya looked at her with a knowing expression. Misako saw, and avoided it. "This particular blend of leaves has the property to make whoever has contact with it older. The gronkle on this island has existed for hundreds of years, and by all accounts is reaching the end of its lifetime."

"Great, getting hunted by a senior citizen monster," Kai snorted, arms crossed over his chest. Nya gave him a cowering look.

"So all we have to do is douse it with this tea, and it will age into death?" she asked. Misako nodded.

"But you'll need to trap it in one place long enough for me to hit it," she said, slipping the vial into a pocket on her tunic.

"But first," Kai said, and threw out an arm to block her exit from the cave. "Don't think I didn't notice how you knew about Lloyd. Explain that to me."

"Kai!" Nya hissed, but Misako only looked at him with that same sad, faraway look.

"Yes, I know about Lloyd," she answered. "And I know why you are here. You're looking for Garmadon."

Kai withdrew his arm slowly, eyes guarded. "How did you know that?"

Misako looked back, to the room, stacked with scrolls. Then she snapped into action, walking past Kai out onto the ledge and beginning the descent down a small path. "There's no time. All you need to know is that I know where you're headed." She pointed up the mountain, which disappeared in a storm cloud. Nya and Kai shared a look, and swore to each other that this was not over, not yet.

* * *

Lloyd hunched beneath a bush, panting erratically, trying to keep himself from crying. When the ship had crashed, he had seen those cold black flames creeping closer, and had run for his life, as far away as he could go, into the leafy darkness, where the dampness was hot and pressed down on all sides. The back of his green robes, now torn and dirty, clung to him with fearful sweat.

Then he heard them.

Crashing through the underbrush, their voices were low and cautious, but still he heard them.

An unknown woman spoke. "With this, you will draw the gronkle's attention. Try to lead it to an area where it cannot climb, or trap it in a vine nest."

And then, Kai replied in a familiar voice, "Gotcha." There was a tinkling of bells and cymbals.

Lloyd burst from his hiding spot, hearing the strange woman ordering them to fan out. "Kai! Kai!"

The man's eyes widened when he saw the young boy. "Prince Lloyd! Kid, what were you thinking, running off like that?!"

Lloyd couldn't even retort, he was so happy to see a familiar face. "What're you doing?" he eyed the noisemaker in Kai's hand.

"I'm hunting a very dangerous monster, so you need to go find Nya—the Empress—and stick with her. It's too dangerous."

"I can handle it—"

"You're a child," Kai hissed, "you ran off and got lost, and Nya and I got chosen by a thousand year old monster for lunch. You need to make it out of here; your destiny is too important for you to waste it now. Go find Nya. Once I start ringing this, the gronkle will come running. I don't want you to get in the way."

Kai didn't look at Lloyd during his short tirade, keeping an eye out for the gronkle, but when he glanced down, he took a surprised step back at the fury on Lloyd's face.

"I've got it!" Lloyd almost snarled as he snatched the noisemaker from Kai's hands. The Samurai tried to grab for it, but the boy was gone, the sound of chimes chasing him through the lengthening shadows of the forest. Night was coming.

Wind rushed through Lloyd's short blonde hair as he raced nimbly through the jungle, the noisemaker ringing in one hand.

He would not get in the way.

He would not be a burden, the useless tool kept around only for a purpose he_never wanted,_never was_good enough_… fire burned in his veins as he ran, a fire smoldering for years, since he was told about the stupid prophecy, his stupid future that he could never escape… being trained by Zane, by the other Royals in the Wu Palace, never allowed to read comics like the other young kids, because his destiny made him so much_better,_and when he failed, when they shoved him aside for being too young, not experienced enough… it had almost gotten Zane killed.

Lloyd could still see the silhouette of the pirate taking Zane away, on that rainy day when he was too important to be lost. He didn't feel important. He felt overshadowed by himself, by the standard he had to rise to, and he had felt that way ever since he was old enough to understand that his mother had left, and perhaps when he was good enough she would return…

Nine years and she had yet to return.

Lloyd, Destined Prince of Ninjago, the boy who when he came of age would defeat the evil of his father, save the world, become a master, ran through the forest, with the heavy shadow of his destiny on his heels.

He felt like he had been running all his life.

And he was never quite fast enough.

A growl sounded behind him. The sound of a large animal crashing._I can do this_, Lloyd told himself as he ran towards a nest of vines, _I can do this, I can do this, I can do this!_

He slid beneath the vines, and the gronkle leapt on top of him.

* * *

**Heh, and that's the end of part 1! Please review, your reviews are what keep me writing.**


	8. Chapter 7, part II: Time

**And, here we are, the second half of chapter 7 and the last part of the double update. So, if this is your first time checking in today, make sure you ready part I first!**

**I like to call this chapter, "the heartbreaker chapter"...**

**Idea by aychaye, fanfiction by me.**

**Beta'd by my lovely, _supportive_, beta-chan paradorx~**

* * *

Kai's feet bounded over and around the rocks, brambles, and underbrush, Nya fleet-footed at his side, and Misako following behind, her breath too taxed to shout Lloyd's name.

"LLOYD!" Kai bellowed, and got a jangling of bells in return.

The path twisted, rose and fell, and Kai finally arrived in a clearing. He took all of it in quickly: the gronkle, tangled in a net of vines, caught there as it had taken its final leap towards…

"Lloyd!" Kai shouted, and saw the flash of yellow hair, trapped inches below the weight of the gronkle. If he moved, he could be scratched, or crushed.

"Don't move, kid!" Kai called out.

A weak call came out in response. "I'm sorry…"

"We're going to get you out of there!" Nya added, across the clearing from Kai.

"I can't!" Lloyd shouted back. "Just do it!"

"If we hit the gronkle with the tea, you'll age!" Misako had tears in her voice. "You'll be older! Your whole childhood…"

Kai could have sworn he heard Lloyd give a bitter laugh at that.

"It's okay," Lloyd said, pushing past the waver in his voice. "It's fine," he said again, and his voice cracked. Anger flooded every inch of him as Misako hesitated one final time. "DO IT!" he shouted. Biting back a sob, Misako arched her arm and threw the glass bottle. It soared through the air, glinting in the sunlight, before it collided with the gronkle, square in the back. Glass shattered. Lime green liquid spread over the scales and the spines, pooling with acidic steam. The steam grew, encasing the gronkle, filling the air with a thick, sweet scent. Kai coughed once before he felt the taste envelope his tongue, coating the inside of his mouth in cloying sweetness. It invaded his lungs, cold and icy, like a knife he couldn't see, and he froze against his will for the sharpest of seconds. He exhaled, the smoke and steam leaving him in one fell swoop, and he stood there, bones of the gronkle pattering down around him like rain.

A flash of light made Kai snap to attention.

Between Nya, on the other side of the clearing, and himself, Lloyd was bent over double, still a young boy. With a cry, he arched his back, head tilted up. Gold glinted in his emerald-green eyes, light traveling over him, burning from within.

"Lloyd!" Kai called out to him, trying to approach, and being repelled by an unseen force. The boy fell to his knees, still facing the heavens, and when he opened his mouth, light exploded out, forceful, painful, and unnatural. It ripped along his skin in waves, and where it moved the boy grew, and grew, and grew…

Finally, the light gone, Lloyd collapsed fully, his green robes torn and small. Kai rushed to him, Nya doing the same. Misako stood completely still, arm still partially raised from her throw. Her eyes sparkled with tears.

"Lloyd! Lloyd!" Kai knelt down beside him and gently turned him over. He was breathing, that was clear, but his eyes were shut and showed no sign of opening. Kai checked him over for wounds, but found none.

"Bring him; we can go back to my place." Misako appeared at Kai's elbow. The Samurai lifted the unconscious boy—now a young man, into his arms, and followed her, past the piles of gronkle bones, back to her cave hideout. Nya followed behind.

Lloyd had grown—his dome of pale yellow hair had lengthened into shoulder-length waves, and his jaw was more defined. His turned-up nose remained, as did his generally lanky build, only now he was many inches taller. Kai was panting with the stress of carrying his weight by the time they made it to the cave.

Misako had them spread him out on her cot.

Kai sat down heavily, and threaded one hand through his sharply pointed hair. "The prophecies," he said to his sister's wondering look, his voice cold and defeated.

Nya nodded and sat down as well. "He's the right age, now."

Misako's head snapped up. "You're right," she said with a gasp, and went scrambling for some of her scrolls. She took one and began reading furiously. "In his sixteenth year the son, aided by four men armed with gold and the elements, will challenge the father for the fate of the world, the Shadow Realm, and the world beyond, where darkness waits for the right host to allow the great evil to escape." She looked up fearfully. "I thought we had more time…" she began talking to herself quietly.

"More time? How do you know this? Who _are _you really?" Kai demanded.

"How do you know that? The prophecies were always unclear," Nya said at the same time.

"Not my translations," Misako said proudly. "But I haven't looked at them since…"

"Since you left."

They all became silent at once, words caught in their throats.

They all looked to Lloyd, his voice now deep, as he sat up on his cot, wincing and exploring his long hair with his hands. "Lloyd," Misako began, before she cut herself off, looking for the proper words.

"You haven't looked at those prophecies since I was born, and you left me._Mother._"

Tension rose in the cave, and Nya shared a look with Kai. Lloyd, normally so plaintive, was harsh and cold, pain in his eyes and iron in his voice. He sounded betrayed and hurt, and almost near tears.

"Mother?" Nya asked in a small voice.

"Queen Misako," Lloyd was suddenly acidic and mocking, and Kai flinched, "she ran off when I was just a child, and promised to return…"

Misako looked sorrowfully at the young man on the cot, and Kai could now see the similarity in their eyes, in the wave of their hair. Lloyd swung his legs over the side of the cot and stood, shakily. "You left… to come _here_?" he asked, a hard edge in his voice, like steel. "You left me alone, for what?! Why did you leave me?!" His voice cracked, for a minute, almost back to its original pitch.

Before Misako would gather an answer from the silence, Lloyd lurched to the entrance to the cave, and disappeared. Nya and Misako both moved to follow him.

"I'll talk to him," Kai said, stopping them. Nya nodded and Misako looked stricken.

The Samurai made it out to the cliff edge, where Lloyd was sitting, legs dangling over the edge in his too-short pants. After a moment, he took a seat beside him. "That was a gutsy thing, kid, running after the gronkle the way you did."

"Do you know what it's _like?_" Lloyd asked, without preamble.

"Probably not," Kai admitted.

"People have always been expecting things of me, wanting me to train, to do my best… but I was never enough. All the pressure, and with what reward? My mother leaves me when I was a baby, my uncle runs off without a word… how am I supposed to be ready for this? I haven't had enough _time_, and now…?" he drifted off and buried his face in his hands. He couldn't even begin to describe the years of being something more than he ever could be. His destiny hung over him like a blade ready to strike. And through it all, everyone in the palace supported him, but he had no mother, no father. He was friendless, without a family, other than Zane, who was more of a close teacher, and his uncle, who was always too busy to form a bond with him.

After a moment, Kai rested his hand on his shoulder. "You were alone, before. Now, you've got me."

One of Lloyd's emerald eyes looked up at him from behind his fingers. Kai had a smile on his face. "And not only that, you've got Zane. Jay, Cole. You've got all of us, like the prophecies say. And besides, as far as messed up families go, I think I've got you beat. I didn't recognize my sister for _four years_."

Lloyd laughed.

He was still laughing when Nya rushed out of the cave. "Misako's gone!" she announced. "She just left through this hidden door, and I can't get it open. She took some scrolls with her, but left one… I think it's for us…"

They went inside and saw the scroll, illustrated with a golden temple atop a mountain, and four men with four golden weapons, surrounding and man in green. Kai rolled it up and tucked it in his belt. Nya continued to look for a way to follow Misako, but Lloyd placed one hand on her shoulder.

"Let her go," Lloyd said, and the bitterness in his voice was faint, "Let's just get back to the others."

* * *

Jay fought like a madman, striking and shocking with his golden weapon, but it became clear that the warriors not only wore armor of stone, they _were _stone as well. Any hit you could give them barely fazed them, and they attacked almost robotically. The pirates were having a hard time, but the target of the Stone Army seemed to be those with golden weapons.

"Jay!"

He looked towards where his name had come from, and caught Cole's frantic look. And then all the air was gone from his chest, his throat, as an arm was wrapped thickly around his neck. Fire exploded across his neck as the arm tightened, and he felt his feet lift up from the sand. He choked, and saw Cole rushing towards him through the dimming light. _Like he had seen him running to the ship, leaving the town in flames…_

Suddenly Jay was on his knees, taking in great gasping breaths. "Sheriff? Jay?" Cole's hands were on his shoulders. "Jay, breathe!"

He obeyed, taking in great breaths, falling to one side as he watched Cole fight off the sudden influx of soldiers, aiming for the injured member. Suddenly, they pulled back, and the general approached.

Cole walked confidently towards him, while Jay remained hard of breath, watching. The Captain swung his scythe upwards, only to have it slapped out of the way by the general, who trapped Cole's arm and dragged him too close for his scythe to be of any use.

Cole, with no other options, drew back one arm and punched him. In the face. The blow hurt his hand like nothing else, and the general stumbled backwards a single step, giving Cole enough room to draw his scythe. The general had one hand on his jaw, and he turned his head to look at it, eyes wide, and then at Cole.

"…You hit me," he said in a surprised, thick accent.

"Oh, so you _do _speak English," Cole retorted, and then struck again. The general barely blocked the blow, and then shouted out a command in his sharp, guttural language. The older soldiers all began to methodically back up, into the underbrush, melting into the shadows. One by one they disappeared, and the last Cole saw of the general was the high crown of his helmet fading in amongst the trees and vines.

Once he was gone, Cole dropped his scythe to the ground to hold his throbbing hand. "_Ow_," he said loudly. Jay heard him, and walked over, wheezing slightly.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I punched him," Cole hissed, massaging his hand, which felt like it might have dislocated a few fingers.

Jay's eyes grew wide. "The big one? You punched him?"

Cole nodded, lips in a tight, painful line.

Jay took a moment to absorb this new information. "In the _face_?" his voice held barely contained enthusiasm.

The Captain couldn't help but press out a pained smile. "You should have seen the look on his face," he said, and Jay smiled before dissolving in laughter, sinking down to sit in the sand.

"Ow," Jay said, one hand at his bruised throat.

"What?" Cole asked, raising an eyebrow. He spotted Zane beginning to walk over, and could already feel the healing relief in his hand. He took a seat in the sand beside the Sheriff.

"Nothing," Jay panted out between fits of laughter, "It's just… my life. Sitting on a cursed island with the world's most infamous pirate, who just punched the leader of an army made of stone. _In the face. _After saving my life. My life is definitely not what I expected it to be four years ago."

"It's all about perspective, I guess," Cole chuckled. Jay froze, but he didn't see, too focused on Zane fixing his hand to see how Jay suddenly clawed up handfuls of sand with a conflicted look on his face.

"I guess," he finally returned, and pushed himself to standing, looking out at the tree line of the forest, where, as he squinted against the sun, two figures in red emerged, with a third figure in green supported between them.

The Samurai had returned.

* * *

Lloyd got some much-needed rest as Kai explained the new change to the others, passing the scroll around. "So, the prophecies are clear now. We're meant to protect Lloyd until we reach the Shadow Realm, where he will battle his father. If he loses, Garmadon will enter Ninjago and destroy everything. If he wins, yay for us, the world is safe."

"How do we even get there?" Cole asked. Jay kept glancing at Nya, and she kept glancing back. When Kai had introduced her as the Empress, and his sister, Jay's jaw had nearly unattached from his head at the speed it had opened. He was the first to bow to her as one would to an Empress, and kissed her hand longer than Kai had liked. She had blushed back and now the two seemed unsure of how to continue. Both were primarily kept from the discussion, so Kai responded to the Captain.

"Queen Misako pointed out the mountain to Nya and me while we were with her. I think that that's where we'll find this temple, the doorway to the Shadow Realm. Once inside, it's only a matter of getting to Garmadon. Lloyd should know what to do when we get there."

"He has been trained in energy manipulation at the palace," Zane clarified, "like King Wu and Lord Garmadon were trained. However, he was always too young to summon his own energy to fight… now that he is older; however… what is the phrase? Like riding a bicycle. He should be able to take care of himself."

"And with us to help him," Kai added, rolling up the scroll once more, "he should be fine."

"And while we're in the Shadow Realm I can find my father's soul," Cole said, almost to himself, but all took it in silently, Jay with a stricken look that went unnoticed.

Dareth hailed them from the makeshift shelter he and the other pirates had fashioned from the ruined deck of the_Destiny's Bounty_. The pirates, after the battle with the Stone Army, were beat, and only wanted to rest around the fire for the night, telling stories.

Cole and Zane told Kai about the Stone Army, and Kai confirmed that Misako had mentioned a General Kozu.

"I punched him in the face," Cole said, with a bit of pride.

"And dislocated three fingers doing it," Zane added, a joking tone in his voice. Cole elbowed him good-naturedly, and the two lead the way over to the fires, that were just beginning to keep back the night.

* * *

Nya chose to sit away from the fire and the talk, since her presence made most of the pirates uneasily shy, unsure of how to treat the Empress out of uniform, acting like a normal girl. She breathed in the scent rising from the ocean and looked up at the stars, the same stars that had shone for her when she was Nya, blacksmith's daughter, and Empress of Ninjago. A slight sound of crushing sand made Nya look up, and she saw Jay approaching her awkwardly from the direction of the fire pit. She blushed and for the first time, was aware that it could be seen, her makeup fully removed.

"Hello, Sheriff," she said.

"You can call me Jay, ma'am," he replied easily before hesitating and holding out a blanket. "It looked a little cold out here, away from the fire. Thought you'd like this."

She took the proffered blanket with a smile an arranged it over her shoulders. Jay rocked back and forth on his heels, considering, when Nya spoke. He blinked quickly.

"Huh?"

"I said you could just call me Nya," she repeated. "I'm not an Empress out here."

"Oh." He sat down next to her on the sandy beach, looking out over the water. "You think it's true?" he asked, "the stories about the Island being cursed? Beyond monsters, I mean."

"I was told a different story as a little girl," she said, drawing the blanket closer over her shoulders. It was rough and woolen, but she suspected that it had been Jay's own blanket. She could smell his dusty, sunbaked scent on it.

Jay made a noise to show that he was listening and scooted closer on the sand, raising Nya's blush again. "I was told that the Island was a gateway to the Shadow Realm," she told him, "guarded by men made of stone."

"Not untrue," he couldn't help but snort.

Nya smiled and continued, "And in time, from this gateway, a dark force would rise."

"Lord Garmadon," Jay said, as if answering a question in school.

Nya shook her head, ebony hair brushing her neck. "This story predates Lord Garmadon. It speaks of an 'Overlord'."

"Well, that doesn't sound like fun," Jay said after a moment's pause.

Nya giggled and Jay looked pleasantly surprised at the sound. But then his face grew serious.

"Ah, I'm not sure about the etiquette involved here, but…" he took in a breath to bolster his courage, "but, seeing as we may be going to our inevitable doom, it seems like the right time to ask you out on a date."

Nya looked at him sharply. "A date?" she asked, voice high.

"I don't mean anythin' serious!" Jay exclaimed, color rising in his face. "I'm not talkin' about wedding plans. Just… a date, I dunno. I was thinking a nice restaurant?"

"I'm sorry," Nya cut in, "I didn't mean I didn't want to go, I was just… surprised. I've never been asked on a date before."

"What!" Jay gasped.

Nya looked away, burying her face in the blanket and inhaling the scent of warm fields of grass and wide open skies. "I mean, no one really bothered before I became Empress, because I look like…" she let the sentence trail off.

Jay mulled this over silently. "That's a load of hooey," he finally said. "Seeing as you're the prettiest girl I ever met."

He stood up before he could, in his mind, mess up his chances any more. "If we survive, you and me, Nya… date." He gave her his best smile before jogging back off to join the circle around the fire. Nya looked at her fingers with a large grin on her face, cheeks tinged with color.

"Should I break his legs?" Kai asked, emerging from the gloom like a phantom. "I could break his legs."

"_Kai!_"

* * *

In the morning, there was a grim determination all throughout the camp. Kai clapped Lloyd on his shoulder as the young man strapped on his armor, bronze to contrast the golden yellow of his hair. The Destined Prince, heading to his destiny. His mouth tightened into a serious line, and he nodded in return.

Jay stood apart from the rest, mind in a tangle. It was only when Nya approached him, a bit shyly, did he give a weak excuse for a smile.

Cole and Zane stood together. They did not speak; they only seemed to take comfort in the other's presence. Cole only separated himself once, to order Dareth to watch the ruins of the ship with the remaining pirates, and, if possible, to cobble together a suitable craft to get them off the island when the time came. The first mate nodded and shook his Captain's hand, possibly for the last time.

And then they walked.

Through the green forest, golden light pooling through the vines and creepers, they walked. Heat pressed down around them, and they quickly reached the mountain that Misako had pointed out to them. There was a winding path that Zane found that they followed, twisting over the bare, grey rocks. The cliff face dropped away sharply on the left, and stretched out high on the right, where the lip of the next level of path could be seen. On and on they walked, climbing over small boulders and squeezing between large shards of cracked rock and the cliff face.

As they walked, the day half spent, there was a rumbling of rocks ahead. Zane felt it, heard it, but no one else did, moving forward in a small, short line, weapons at the ready. Pictures bloomed behind Zane's eyelids that burned away when he blinked, and the hairs rose on the back of his neck. A bad omen.

Then, he saw it. A large shard of rock, waiting ahead, at the level above their trail. He could almost taste the darkness borne on the wind from it. He opened his mouth to call out for them to step back, and then he froze as a vision gripped him for the shortest of seconds.

_Black and red. Blood and hair. Gold gripped in a strong sun-darkened hand, so strong and gentle. Eyes open wide, dark brown eyes, defiant dying eyes, Cole's eyes, Cole's mouth, blood flooding Cole's open mouth and his open eyes are dying, looking at him. Rock crushing blood and bone and skin and heart, bone and rock and red and black and pain and death and defiant eyes looking at him and a mouth flooded with red and he's screaming, he's screaming in his eyes, dead, dead, dead, _dead—

Zane hardly recognized the moment his vision stopped, because even as it was ending he was shoving Cole aside without explanation, without a yell, and then he saw the shard of rock descend on him, touch at his chest, break into it, pushing him down and making his chest erupt with pain. Pain. Pain everywhere and it was so hard to breathe…

"Zane!" Cole shouted, but it sounded so far away. He was kneeling over Zane, eyes frantic. "_Zane!"_

As everything in his sights faded, Zane saw reflected in Cole's eyes something different than his vision, and he smiled with happiness at it.

_White and red. Blood and hair. Gold strapped to a back clothed in white, so bright and so clean. Eyes open wide, pale gray eyes, proud dying eyes, Zane's eyes, Zane's mouth, black liquid flooding Zane's smiling mouth and his eyes are dying, looking at himself in Cole's eyes. Rock crushing skin and something glittering and something moving, metal and white and red and gray and pain and defiant eyes looking and him, begging, a mouth flooded with black liquid that tastes like oil and machinery, and he's smiling, he's smiling because he saved Cole, and Cole is screaming, screaming, screaming, screaming…_

Something whirred to a stop in Zane's mind and everything went dark.

* * *

**Mmhm... poor Zane...**

**Review, please?**


	9. Chapter 8: Oil

**Hello, readers, after a bit of an absence I return! Please do excuse me, I had a bout of writer's block that was followed by a stressful college roadtrip... but no matter! My problems are none of your concern.**

**I'm not a very big fan of reviewer shout-outs in the beginning author's notes, but special mention does go out to Jade (Guest) and depressedchibi! You guys rock my socks, honestly.**

**Beta'd by my beta-chan, the lovely swimmy anime paradorx~**

* * *

Garmadon was standing before the helmet that had been delivered to him by the Stone Army, by a warrior named Kozu. High and crowned with what could only be dragon's horns, the helmet sang with darkness, something old and ancient and terrifying, nameless. He did not scare easily; it was no longer in his nature to be frightened of darkness, since he himself was something to be inherently feared, but this helmet stilled him for a moment. He stretched out a hand to take it, but did not move to touch it.

There was a soft sound behind him, and he turned sharply, heartbeat accelerating.

Misako's hand flew to her mouth and she froze where she stood, green eyes wide and shocked. Garmadon himself felt his mouth open, and his lower two hands sought the support of the table behind him.

Misako—gentle, beautiful, clever Misako—she hadn't changed much since he had last seen her… her hair was combed with grey and her face was showing soft lines, but he could still see the clever twist of her mouth, the proud line of her nose… and then he became sharply aware of what he looked like to her…

He struggled to say her name before turning his back on her. His back, bent over the table where he braced all four of his hands, was black as pitch, the white glint of his spine rising from the darkness like a serpent at sea. As he breathed, it moved, rising and falling, and the stretch of muscles was so clear, making the motion almost unnatural. Misako swallowed heavily and walked towards him, hesitating to reach out a hand to touch his shoulder.

She couldn't do it.

She withdrew her hand, and seemed aware of it, and he chuckled harshly in his throat. "I'm quite the sight now, aren't I?" He turned around to face her fully, let her see the planes of his skull with the black flesh clinging to it, the sharpened points of his teeth, the rising hills of his ribs protruding from his bare chest. He rolled his shoulders back, and his lower set of arms moved thoughtlessly. Misako looked at him endlessly.

"Garmadon," she said his name like it was years ago, lifetimes ago, when he still deserved to have her say his name without contempt.

"Misako," he returned, and his voice was the kissing of a snake coiled beneath a lost katana, with a green stone set into its head and a red gleam in its eyes, like the burning of so many funeral pyres. "What are you doing here?" he asked her, but it was not unkind. There was a secret softness to his voice.

"Our son," she said shortly, "is on the island."

It took all of his self-control to show no emotion at this fact. "I'm aware of that fact."

"Are you aware that he is now of age to fulfill the prophecy?" Misako's voice was sharp as a whip, and Garmadon visibly started.

"What?" he growled. "Lloyd?"

"He is sixteen now," Misako said in a quiet voice. "He will try to stop you."

"That will not happen," Garmadon's voice was surprisingly soft, and she saw a promise in his eyes. "I have found a way to become too powerful for him to even attempt to fight me." He moved to one side to let Misako see the helmet. Her eyes widened, and, without thinking, she reached out to grip Garmadon's arm.

"No, you can't do this—don't you know what that is?"

"Of course I know," Garmadon shrugged off her hand and finally touched the helmet, lifting it from its perch and holding it at eye level, his horrendous face reflected back to him from the onyx surface. "With the power harnessed from this, I will be undefeatable, and when the ninja come for me, I will destroy them, and take my leave of this dark place."

Misako shook her head. "No, that's a lie the Stone Army told you—"

"_This is my only chance to save Lloyd_."

She looked at him silently. He did not look at her, his eyes locked on his reflection in the helmet. "_That _is not a lie, my… Misako. That is not a lie."

"The darkness tied to that helmet is tied to the worst monster, the most evil thing in all of creation, and it waits beyond the veil in the Afterworld… what if this helmet is the key?"

"I thought _I _was the most evil thing in existence," he quipped in a sarcastic voice.

"No." She placed one hand on his chest, on the black flesh and the white bones and she felt his heartbeat rushing away beneath it all, the same heartbeat she had felt and listened to for years. "No, you're not."

He smiled, and if she looked past the pointed fangs, past the stretched muscles and red eyes, she could almost see a young boy with eyes such a dark shade of blue they were almost purple, laughing as he fought with his brother, the same confident smile he had shot over his shoulder as he scaled the wall, in search of a weapon that was lost.

"You're not a very good liar, Misako," he said, and placed the helmet on his head.

* * *

Cole did not hear himself scream. Rather, he felt it, the fire in his throat and flooding his veins as he watched Zane die, lying on the cold, rocky ground.

His hands were shaking, out of his control, as he pressed them around the wound, to Zane's hands, to the side of his face, attempting to wake him from a sleep that was dark and endless. His eyes, a shining, delicate gray, looked right at him as he felt himself scream and drenched his hands in dark—almost black—blood. Cole's hands slipped over his face as he sat back, unable to breathe, a man on fire, burning.

Kai was saying something. Cole didn't care.

His hands were on his scythe, and he was standing, unsteady. Jay was at his elbow but Cole pushed him away. The Army. The Stone Army. He knew they did this.

"_I'll kill you!" _he shouted, screamed, "_I'll kill all of you bastards!"_

"Cole! _COLE!_" Jay was in front of him, hands up beseechingly. "Cole, you need to calm down!"

"_He's dead!" _he shouted, voice cracking. He dropped his scythe from his shaking hands and brought them to his face once more, feeling warm wetness staining his cheeks. He was sitting on the ground. Jay was still talking. Cole didn't hear him. Zane's eyes were locked in his mind and his voice was in his veins, laughing like the ghost he now was.

Everything went silent as the Captain mourned, kneeling on the stony ground, his back to the corpse he couldn't face. He couldn't stand to see the wounds and the blood. Couldn't make himself do it.

"Kai." Nya's voice was quiet. Her brother moved to stand next to her as she kneeled next to the Prince's still corpse. He didn't say anything, and, with one eye on Cole's back, Nya took his hand and moved it down to where Zane's neck met his shoulder. She pressed his fingers there, silently, waiting.

"He has a pulse," Kai said in an awed voice. "_He's still alive._"

Cole couldn't breathe.

He turned around, on his hands and knees, scrambling to Zane, and felt the weak push of blood through the vein on his neck. Biting back a sob, he moved Zane's head into his lap protectively. "What do we do?!" he demanded.

To their surprise, Lloyd was the one who spoke up. Tears tracked down his face and Kai was sharply reminded that for all of Lloyd's life, Zane had been his brother, his teacher, the closest thing he had to a friend.

"We need to get him somewhere sheltered," he said, and then looked up the trail. "I'll scout ahead, there's got to be an empty cave up there somewhere."

"Okay. Okay," Cole cradled Zane's body in his arms, picking him up and making a strangled noise as the shard of rock still protruding from Zane's chest shifted and a river of black blood flowed out, drenching Cole's arms up to the elbow. He settled Zane's weight against his chest as well as he could and began to walk while Lloyd sprinted ahead, disappearing around the bend. Kai took out his sword, flames igniting along the blade, and followed, keeping the young man's green robes in view, just ahead of him. Around and around they went, eventually passing where the shard had originated from, the footprints of Stone Warriors present, and a lingering scent of darkness and smoke. The walls of the mountain held no crevices. Lloyd began to grow desperate, and stumbled, his hands cutting on the ground. Kai went to help him but he was shrugged off, the Destined Prince pushing on forward.

Finally, they rounded the final corner, reaching the summit of the mountain.

It was flat, and they froze. Directly in front of them was a great temple forged all in gold, with a great circular red door shut against them.

Next to the temple, almost leaning on it for support, was a ramshackle house. And standing in front of the house, frozen in mid-step, was an elderly man, looking in shock at the odd pair panting in his sanctuary.

"Please," Lloyd panted, "Please, we need your help."

The man twitched. Then he sprinted inside the leaning house and slammed the door. Lloyd gritted his teeth and began to stalk forward, with Kai on his heels.

"Hey, old man-!" Lloyd shouted, and then was cut off as from the floor of the mountaintop, walls of chinked earth rose up, a fifth section clapping on top to complete the cage trap. Kai and Lloyd were trapped inside and immediately began testing for weaknesses in the cage.

The old man appeared, cautiously peeking out from behind his front door. "You Stone Army goons never come this close to the Temple," he called out, "That's changed?"

"We're not Stone Army!" Kai called out angrily.

"I am Prince Lloyd of Ninjago!" Lloyd nearly screamed, tear tracks on his face collecting dust. "And I order you to set me free! My brother—"

"Prince Lloyd…" the old man said, as if to himself. And then his eyes widened, a pearly grey color. "Brother?"

"My brother Prince Zane is injured and needs help._Please._" In the past twenty-four hours, he had lost his mother, his childhood, and now his brother. Kai could see he was close to cracking.

The old man disappeared back inside and Lloyd began screaming obscenities, a few of which Kai took note of for later use. But then the cage fell down into its original hidden setting. The man walked back out, white hair askew.

"Where is he?" he asked, breathless.

Wordlessly, Kai lead the way.

* * *

Zane was heavy in Cole's arms, but still he walked. On and on and on, with the black liquid drying in streaks down his arms, sticking to his neck. Behind him, Jay and Nya both carried the weight of his scythe, struggled with it. All Cole could focus on was putting one foot in front of the other, up the mountain incline.

_Don't die, _he begged silently, _please._

He didn't know who or what he was begging.

All he knew was that he couldn't lose Zane without saying goodbye. He couldn't leave a love silently.

Not again.

* * *

He didn't say a word to his father as he left the ship.

Cole was young, not yet strong, with wildness to his lanky limbs and a rebellion housed in his mouth, crowded in amongst his teeth, bared often in humorless grins. His eyes were not yet defiant, but they were just as dark and boundless. The skin of his back was bare and empty.

He was young and he was restless; he was cold and distant and he was constantly looking for a horizon he could touch, coming up empty so long as his father, demanding and constant, was at his shoulder.

And so he left.

He gathered up his few belongings and prepared to sneak across the deck of the ship at night, when the moon was empty and dark. His feet were sure and cold, bare against the wood. This was his freedom, carried on the cold air, burning into his lungs.

As Cole reached the side of the ship there was a loud creak that could only be one thing. With a hostile, childish look, Cole looked to the helm. A figure leaned against the wheel languidly, lazily, and as Cole stared with horrible anger in his eyes the light of a pipe illuminated the face of his father. It was the face all fathers wore when their children were no longer children.

There were no words. Only two pairs of dark eyes staring from across the ship.

Cole turned away and left the ship and his father behind.

Years later, after a dragon, gold, and a tattoo of ink and flight on the virgin skin of his back, Cole would hear of his father's death.

There were no words.

* * *

Cole walked and walked and walked.

And he never made a sound.

* * *

"Come with me," the old man said urgently when he reached them, Kai and Lloyd at his side, "I can save him."

Cole didn't have the energy to question him. He followed him quickly to his house on the summit of the mountain, with the glare from the gold burning Cole's eyes somewhat, but he didn't care about a shining temple when Zane was pale and cold in his arms, dripping black liquid in small running rivulets.

Inside the man's house was cleaner and larger than it appeared from the outside, with several rooms with doors shut and a wide, clear hallway that Cole maneuvered into, trying to keep Zane from colliding with the walls. At the end of the hallway was a larger, brightly lit room with a large table in the center. With a sweep of his arms the man cleared piles of machinery from it and let Cole lay Zane's body down softly. When Zane was lying there, still and pale Cole's arms were shaking, and not from the exertion. He grasped at Zane's hand, leaving behind a large black stain.

"You need to leave and let me work," the man said, not unkindly.

"I'm not leaving him," Cole said, voice faint.

Jay's hand was on his shoulder. "Come on, you need to rest. Let…"

"Dr. Julien," the man supplied into the silence.

"Let Dr. Julien work. Come on." He tugged at Cole's shoulder, moving him like he weighed nothing, back and back and back, until they were standing in the doorway. Kai and Lloyd were collapsed against the walls, panting and sweating. Nya remained behind with Dr. Julien, and said something to him in a quiet voice. The old man nodded.

"Okay," he said, nodded, and then shut the door.

Cole sank to the ground, Jay's hand still on his shoulder.

* * *

"I know who you are," Nya whispered once the door was shut. "The Watchmaker to the Empress."

He looked at her for a long moment, in her dusty red robes with her disheveled black hair, bobbed short to cup her face.

"How do you…?" he asked, and then pushed it from his mind. "No matter. You told me that you worked with machines, and that is why you are here. Help me." He grasped at the shard of rock impaling Zane's chest. "Hold him down." She pinned his shoulders to the table.

Dr. Julien, with a grunt, wrenched the rock free. Black liquid surged through the open wound, which flashed a metallic color within.

Zane screamed.

* * *

Jay watched Cole intently. The pirate was on his knees, staring at the door that separated him from Zane with an empty, void gaze. His arms were drenched in the black liquid Zane had been bleeding, but his black clothing showed no stain. However, where Cole had touched his face with his soiled hands were large black stains.

Cautiously, Jay laid a hand on Cole's shoulder, expecting a retaliation of some kind. No response.

"Come on," Jay said quietly. "You need to get cleaned up."

Slowly, sluggishly, Cole allowed himself to be guided up and down the hall into a room with a sink and a faucet. Jay got the water running, and then Cole was a flurry of motion, getting out of his shirt and with a strangled cry shoving his head under the stream of water, back shaking silently. Jay was about to do something resembling comfort—although he had no idea really how to do that—when Cole withdrew, water streaming in grey streaks down his shoulders and chest.

"I can't do it," he said. Jay was an audience, not a participant, and so he did not speak. Cole plunged his arms into the basin, half-filled with water. "How am I supposed to save my father when I can't even save my…" with another strangled sound his ducked his face into the basin, drenching it. He game up gasping and sputtering, face clean of black.

"I was always a failure to my father," Cole said. Jay stood by, silently. "And now I think I get why he thought that. I couldn't do anything right… it wasn't until after he died I even started being a pirate for real. And it was… I was looking for some sort of reassurance from the gold and whatever else I got. And it wasn't enough. And then I decided to try and buy my father back from death and I end up here… and here is where I let Zane die."

"He pushed you out of the way," Jay spoke up quietly, loathe to break the silence. "He was trying to save you."

Cole laughed, hard and dark and bitter. "I'm not worth saving."

"Everyone is worth saving," Jay replied. "Everyone deserves a chance."

One of Cole's dark, defiant eyes stared at him from underneath a chunk of wet, dripping black hair. "Is that the Sheriff talking?" he asked, "Or the guy behind the badge?"

"You say that you're not worth saving," Jay countered quickly. "Is that the killer, infamous pirate with no regrets talking, or the boy who lost his father?"

Cole looked at his hands, a bit of gray water sticking in the creases. "It's all… it bleeds together after a time, doesn't it? The boy becomes the pirate, the pirate is the boy."

Jay shifted his weight from foot to foot. "The responsibilities of the Sheriff overcome the man."

"Now, the big question is which one of those two thinks I deserve a second chance," Cole said. "And frankly, I'm going to have to disagree with whichever one it is."

"Shades of grey," Jay commented lightly.

"Shades of grey," Cole agreed.

* * *

"You need to calm down," Kai ordered.

"Oh, that's fantastic, coming from you," Lloyd replied. "The famed fire samurai with a chip on his shoulder and problems with authority, telling me to calm down." He kicked at a stray pebble on the ground. He and Kai were outside Dr. Julien's house, trying to vent steam. Tensions were clearly high.

"But that never interfered with my tasks." There was a vein in Kai's forehead, pumping angrily. "Right now you're preparing to try and defeat your father in a world that is a bridge to where spirits go when they die. A land of lost souls."

Lloyd grunted, pacing. "Don't remind me." He stopped pacing suddenly. "If Zane dies… we won't have four. Does that mean I'll fail?! Will I die if Zane dies?!"

"Focus," Kai demanded, although his tone was not unkind. "Breathe. Control your fire. That's what I do. Channel it. I channel it into my sword. You… you have energy powers."

Lloyd nodded. "Yeah, like King Wu."

"Show me."

Lloyd cupped his hands together at chest height and then thrust them out, a green light emanating from his palms into a hard stream of power. Ozone rippled out through the air.

Lloyd stood still, panting slightly, eyes unfocused. "What if it's not enough?" he asked in the voice of the small boy he really was, despite his body.

"Again," Kai ordered. "Do it until your mind is clear."

Lloyd did.

* * *

When the messy work was done, Nya collapsed into a chair. Dr. Julien watched her solemnly. "You knew?" he asked.

"I suspected," she said. "That's why I offered my help with machines."

He nodded slowly. Zane lay before them, stretched out on the table. His robes had been stripped away and now his chest was covered in a shiny metal plate, covering how instead of a heart, lungs, bones, he was built of steel and the components of a clock. A clock similar to the one a watchmaker had made for the Empress so many years ago, tapping into the flow of time to tell the future. Zane's visions were mechanic, not mystical.

"Watchmaker…" Nya said slowly. "You disappeared."

"I was taken," he said, sitting down as well, waiting for Zane to wake from his slumber. "By a warrior whose flesh was made of stone. They took me here because of my understanding of the anti-matter… it's how the visions work, how the Empress's clock works. They made me… they had this helmet, and they made me do… horrible things." The old man shuddered just thinking about it. "And then they left me here. I had no idea if they would return, so I set up some traps…" he shrugged. "I never suspected…" he looked wistfully as Zane.

"He is your son," Nya said.

Dr. Julien jumped and then eyed her. "You're a very perceptive young lady."

She shrugged. "You should tell him," she said.

"I can't." he shook his head sadly. "I can't give him the pain of knowing… I gave him away. And I have regretted that choice for as long as I've lived."

Nya let him keep his silence for a long moment before speaking again. "I kept a secret from my brother for a long while. We were all each other had, and still I thought it better to keep this secret from him. If something had happened to either of us before he knew the truth…" she drifted off sadly. "Trust me, you don't want that. He… we are all going somewhere dangerous. We might not survive."

The doctor was looking at his sleeping creation, his son, once more. Nya stood and began to leave.

"If you don't mind my prying… what was the secret?"

She paused. "The secret was that I gave my life away for my country." She looked over her shoulder at him, saw him squinting and then his face going slack with shock as he recognized her. She left him alone with his choices.

Outside, she found Jay at a window, his hands braced on the sill and eyes moving as he watched her brother talk sternly to Lloyd.

She leaned silently into his back when she reached him. He gave a slight jump in surprise and then looked over her shoulder. "Hey," he said softly, turning and bringing an arm over and around her. "Are you alright? Is Zane-?"

"He's fine," she said shortly, but her eyes, looking up at him, said so much more. They were going into the heart of danger, now that Zane was back with them. There was nothing to stop them.

His face softened as he read her silence well. He entwined his fingers into hers, stained black from the oil pumping through Zane's veins, and tugged her towards a sink. "Let's clean you up," he said. She followed behind, her heart full and her mind heavy.

* * *

Dr. Julien sat alone.

He leaned forward and opened the hatch in his son's chest, revealing all manner of new dials and switches to replace those that had been crushed by the rock. His hand hovered over an unmarked switch. He could remember turning it, so long ago, before delivering his son to the Palace of Wu. It had been so long ago…

Before his courage could leave him, Dr. Julien flipped the switch.

* * *

_Pain registered. Systems damaged. Emergency shutdown protocol enga-ga-ga-gaged._

Cole's arms, wrapped around him. But it wasn't an embrace.

_Pain rrrregistered._

_Systems dama-dama-damaged, pain rerererererere—_

_Pain registered._

Movement, faster now. Zane was lying on a table.

_Majorrrrr system malfunction, paipaipain rrrrregistered, damage, damage, damage-mage-mage-maged._

_Overload, creator system engaged, repair sequence beginning…_

_Creator. Creator. Creator. Creator ID identified._

Zane was calm, locked and still, asleep and yet aware of his surroundings.

_Memory banks activated._

Zane was a child. He played with toys. He learned to cook, loved the taste of different foods. His father was a clockmaker. His father made him. His father programmed him; he was destined for something greater, he was a creation of a man with love in his hands. He was destined for something else, someone else, Wu, the House of Wu, he was a Prince, he had to leave, it was his destiny, his creation, he was a creation, a construct…

"Remember Zane. This is your purpose," his father-creator told him, his chest plate open. "And remember… I love you, no matter what." A flip of a switch.

_Memory banks emptied. Assimilation of memory complete._

_Systems online. New systems detected._

_Identify._

_Unknown._

_Identify._

…_Zane…_

_Identify._

_My name… my name is Zane… I…_

_Identify._

_I am Zane. I am… I am a robot._

_Identity Confirmed. Systems online. Start-up sequence initiated._

* * *

Slowly, cautiously, Zane opened his eyes. He was lying on the table, dressed in fresh white clothes with a bundle of cloth beneath his head as a pillow. There was a pressure in his hand.

Looking down, Zane saw a dark hand clasping his, and, following the hand, saw Cole, chin resting on his chest as he slept in a chair by the table. Suddenly it was hard for Zane to breathe as he watched the movements of Cole's eyes beneath a fringe of thick black hair, the gentle rise and fall of his chest. Cole, so wonderfully, beautifully human, dreaming normally. And here he was, nothing but a construction.

Slowly, softly, with his heart in his mouth, Zane tried to remove his hand from Cole's grasp. The movements woke him, his eyes flickering slightly and then focusing on Zane, sitting up on the table.

"Zane!" Cole was relieved, breathless, and he wrapped his arms around Zane before the Prince could react, hugging him to his chest. Then he pushed Zane away to look him up and down frantically, taking a seat on the edge of the table. "You're alright." His voice was strained with emotion.

Zane couldn't bear to look at him, at his happiness. He didn't know. And Zane could not lie to him, could not bear keeping the truth from him. He began to speak.

"I am not…" he squeezed his eyes shut, as if he could keep himself from seeing how Cole's face would twist in scorn and disgust. "I am not human. I am… gears and machinery and I do not have a heart or-or anything—" he rambled on, thoughtless, trackless.

"Hey." There was a touch at his face, Cole's thumb dragging down the line of his jaw. Zane turned into it by instinct.

"I am sorry Cole, I am not human, I am sorry…" he tightened his eyes even more and began to see an explosion of colors.

"_Stop._" He bit his tongue at Cole's command, eyes screwed shut and heart—not heart, clock—beating out loudly in his mind. There was a shifting on the table as Cole leaned forward, and leaned his forehead into Zane's. The Prince reveled in the touch, the sensation of crushed black hair against his skin._This_was not a construction. It, Cole, his wide smiles and his dark eyes, those were real. Slowly, Zane opened his eyes to focus on Cole, face tantalizingly close, a gentle smile on his mouth as he looked up through lashes at Zane.

"_Zane_," Cole whispered with a breathy chuckle that made the hairs on the back of Zane's neck rise, "In case you haven't noticed, I'm a pirate. I don't care about rules. I don't care what other people think. I care about _you_."

Zane's breath clenched in his throat and he wrapped one hand around the back of Cole's neck, pulling him in close, thick black hair tangling in his fingers. Cole's face was flushed and warm beneath Zane's hands, his mouth, and Zane shifted his weight as Cole tightened his fists in the material of Zane's shirt, climbing up his back. Fingers, rough and calloused brushed against his spine and he couldn't help a shiver from traveling over him.

The space between them dwindled by the second, until there was nothing to separate them. No light, no shadow, only the sound of a heart beating in tune with the ticking of a clock.

There were no words.

They didn't need them.

* * *

The skeletons took Misako away as Garmadon sat on his throne with his crowned helmet, awaiting their son's arrival. She stumbled into a dungeon cell, her eyes taking a moment to adjust to the darkness inside.

There was the sound of shifting cloth. And then, a familiar voice.

"Misako."

She felt herself smiling sadly. "Hello, Wu."

* * *

**Ta-Da! Review, please? Three more chapters left!**


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